Doctor WhoMy Little Pony Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer's Diaries
by madu864
Summary: Join Sunset Shimmer as the new Time Lord story and events from New Who Series in Doctor Who/My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer's Diaries of the Time Lord.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue: An Unearthly Child

The movie starts in a junkyard in contemporary London and introduces the four characters who were to form the core of the first year's production: the Doctor, schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who are concerned about one of their pupils at Coal Hill School named Susan Foreman, who seems to have a very alien outlook on England. The purple-haired girl, Aria Blaze, grumbles seems to have a very alien outlook on England. The orange-haired girl, Adagio Dazzle, says the discovery of the Doctor and his time-space ship TARDIS in a junkyard in contemporary London.

As the blue-haired girl Sonata Dusk joins the conversation and is precocious, but seems to have strange gaps in her understanding of the world, which the teachers have come to her listed address to investigate. Here they encounter a police box, the programme's main prop, known as the TARDIS, from within which they hear Susan's voice with Aria, Adagio notices an explosion of rainbow light in the distance. She races out of the cafe and watches the arriving by car at 76 Totter's Lane, Ian and Barbara see Susan enter the junkyard alone. Adagio realizes what following from a distance, they search the junkyard for her in vain. Ian is transfixed by a police box there which hums. Touching it, he exclaims that it's alive. She explains to Aria and Sonata that hear someone coming and hide. An old man approaches the police box and unlocks it. The teachers seem to hear Susan's voice from inside, greeting him. They confront the old man, who brusquely shuts the door and refuses to acknowledge that anyone is inside. When they threaten to go to the police, the old man calmly dismisses their claims. The door opens from the inside. Hearing Susan's voice again, the teachers push past the man. They are astounded to find themselves in a much larger space, with futuristic electronic panels and a central hexagonal control console. Adagio, Aria and Sonata is shocked to find her teachers there. The old man, her grandfather, is furious at their intrusion. Susan and her grandfather, who calls himself simply the Doctor, say the police box is actually a disguise for their space-time ship, the TARDIS. They are alien refugees from another planet and time. Despite Susan's protests, the Doctor prepares the TARDIS for takeoff, saying he must kidnap Ian and Barbara to protect Susan and himself. The sudden takeoff renders the two schoolteachers unconscious. The TARDIS arrives on a Palaeolithic landscape, over which falls the shadow of a man.


	2. Chapter 2

The duo travel to the year Five Billion begins: Rose

Thanks to showrunner and long-term Doctor Who fan Russell T Davies, the world-famous sci-fi show made a comeback to BBC One in 2005, starring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as companion Rose Tyler. Together, the duo travel to the year Five Billion, do battle with the villainous Slitheen in Downing Street and discover the Doctor's oldest enemy, the Daleks on imprisoned beneath the salt plains of Utah. However, wherever the Doctor and Rose go, two mysterious words follow them - two words that could mean their doom - Bad Wolf.

Sometime later from the opening episode on the first series, Rose Tyler wakes up one morning, gets ready for work, and kisses her mother Jackie goodbye. She gets the bus to Henrik's, the department store where she works. In the evening, as the store nears closing time, Rose is about to walk home when she is stopped by a security guard who is holding the lottery winnings for Wilson, the chief electrician. She goes to the basement in search of him, but Wilson is nowhere to be found. She enters a storage room and is disturbed to see a group of moving shop window mannequins that soon surround her. All of a sudden, someone takes hold of her hand and tells her to "Run!"

She quickly obliges, and they both run to a lift whilst being pursued by the mannequins. Before the doors can close, one of the Autons reaches for them, but the half pony girl quickly pulls its arm off before it can do them any harm. On the way up, she informs Rose that Wilson's dead. When they arrive at ground level, the man and the half pony girl holds up a bomb and tells Rose that he plans to destroy a relay device to stop the Autons. He offers a quick introduction — he is the Doctor and she is Sunset Shimmer— and reminds her to run for her life.

Rose heeds his advice, and runs from the vicinity, carrying the plastic arm with her. Once she's at a safe distance, she watches in shock as Henrik's explodes in a huge ball of flame. She returns home, and her boyfriend Mickey Smith comes in to check she's okay. He eventually leaves to watch football, and is asked to take the arm with him. He throws the plastic piece into one of the bins outside.

The next morning, Rose awakens, before realising that she no longer has a job to go to. Walking around the house, she suddenly hears a scratching noise from the cat flap. She assumes her mother hasn't screwed it shut, and that it's a stray cat.

She opens it up to find Sunset and the Doctor; he tells her he's been tracing a signal from the plastic arm. Rose invites him in. While Rose is making the tea, he peers behind the sofa, and is attacked by the arm. Rose notices the strangulation, but ignores it, thinking it a jest — that is until it lets go and flies towards her. Thankfully, the Doctor manages to deactivate the Auton arm with his sonic screwdriver. He throws the piece at her, and hastily rushes out.

Rose runs down the stairs to chase after him, demanding to know what's going on. He tells her that the living plastic is here to start a war that would overthrow and destroy the human race, so that they can claim the Earth as their own. The Doctor and Sunset then departs in a mysterious blue box in the car park, ordering her to forget about him. Rose turns away for a second; when she looks back, both he, she and the box are gone.

Rose cannot let go, and decides to use Mickey's computer. She tries different keywords on , eventually settling on "doctor blue box". She follows a link to .uk, a website owned by a conspiracy theorist named Clive. Mickey drives her to the man's house, where she is invited in by his son. Out in his shed, Clive shows her images from many points in Earth's past, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the sinking of the Titanic and the explosion of Krakatoa. He goes through the facts: "the Doctor is a legend woven throughout history; when disaster comes, he's there." Clive states that he believes the Doctor and Sunset is an immortal alien and the half pony girl. He tells her he is dangerous, and that he has only one constant companion: death.

Meanwhile, Mickey is keeping an eye on the house from his car. He suddenly gets distracted by a bin wheeling forwards on its own. He gets out of the car and opens the bin, expecting to see someone playing a joke. He surprisingly finds it completely empty. As he tries to close the lid, he finds that it's stuck to his hands. The plastic merely stretches as he tries to pull away. After a few attempts at breaking free, the bin suddenly tosses him into the air and swallows him whole.

Sometime later, Rose returns to the car, convinced that she's wasted her time, that this man really is just a conspiracy nutter. They decide to go for pizza. What she doesn't realise is that her Mickey has been swapped, replaced by a shiny, plastic duplicate...

The three arrive at the restaurant and plastic Mickey starts to grill Rose about the Doctor. They are interrupted twice by the offer of champagne. Mickey finally looks up, only to find the Doctor holding the bottle. The Doctor fires the cork at Mickey's forehead, but it moulds into his plastic skull, and simply makes its way down to his mouth, where he spits it out. His hands morph into paddles, and he begins attacking all those around him. There is a brief struggle until Sunset and the Doctor pulls his head off. Rose hits the fire alarm, and, while the others evacuate, Sunset, the Doctor and Rose are chased out of the building by a now-headless Nestene duplicate of Mickey, who flips over tables in the process.

They escape to the back courtyard, and the Doctor enters his little blue box. With nowhere to go, Rose follows him inside at the last second. The second she enters, though, she rushes back outside, thinking Sunset has just gone mad. The inside of the box is bigger than the outside! The Doctor explains that his blue box is called the TARDIS, and that both it and he are alien.

As the Doctor wired Mickey's head to the console, Rose wonders if the real Mickey is dead; the Doctor and Sunset didn't even consider this. The couple's conversation is cut short when Rose points out that the head is melting; he had hoped to use it to track down the Nestene Consciousness — the entity controlling the Autons. He still manages to follow a trace of the signal, but the head is completely melted before they can find the precise location of the Consciousness. They land somewhere nearby their destination, by the edge of the River Thames. Sunset is shocked to learn that they have moved.

The Doctor explains that he needs to find a transmitter of some kind, very big and round. Rose figures it must be "completely invisible", but Sunset identifies it instantly: the London Eye would be the perfect transmitter for the Nestene. The two run together across Westminster Bridge, and Rose quickly finds an entrance to an underground base beneath the Eye.

Rose immediately notices Mickey when they enter, and runs down to him; the Doctor rolls his eyes. The Doctor tries to reason with the Nestene, but the Consciousness has two of its Autons capture him when it detects the presence of the TARDIS, which it identifies as terrifyingly superior technology. They discover a vial of anti-plastic in his pocket — which he had intended to use only as a last resort.

The Nestene confronts his Time Lord enemy about its lost planet. He responds, "I couldn't save your world. I couldn't save any of them!" Terrified, it decides to start the invasion ahead of schedule.

Rose calls her mother to get her to go home to safety. Jackie doesn't hear, though, and continues into the Queen's Arcade mall for some late-night shopping. Much to her surprise, the shop-window dummies come to life, and begin to massacre everyone in sight.

Below the London Eye, Rose decides to take some initiative. Sunset breaks free one of the chains on the wall with an axe, and swings down to the Autons, both freeing the Doctor and pushing the Autons, along with the anti-plastic, into the vat containing the Nestene Consciousness. The vial leaks, and the Nestene Consciousness dies in pain.

Back in the mall, Jackie runs around in a panic and tries to take cover behind a car, as three bride Autons crash through the window behind her. Suddenly, when they are just about to shoot her dead, the transmitter shuts down and all the Autons return to lifeless mannequins again. Underneath the London Eye, the Nestene's base starts to collapse and explode. The Doctor, Sunset, Mickey and Rose board the TARDIS and, just in time, escape a huge explosion.

With the Earth saved, the Doctor suggests Rose join him on his adventures; they can go anywhere in the whole universe. Rose, much to his disappointment, refuses. He bids her farewell and leaves. Rose almost instantly regrets her decision, but carries on getting a terrified Mickey back home.

As she leaves, though, she hears a familiar wheezing noise behind her. Turning around, she sees the TARDIS reappear in front of her. The Doctor and Sunset emerges to tell Rose that the TARDIS can also travel in time. Without much thought, she kisses her boyfriend goodbye and runs straight into the TARDIS, to Sunset for the next dimension to start her new life in time and space.


	3. Chapter 3

Taking on fearsome cat nuns on mankind's new home: New Earth

David Tennant stars as the newly regenerated Tenth Doctor and Billie Piper as companion Rose Tyler board the TARDIS for new adventures in time and space, as Russell T Davies's successful remake of Doctor Who returns! From taking on fearsome cat nuns on mankind's new home, witnessing the rebirth of an old alias of the Doctor's and battling the Devil himself, the duo soon find themselves in the middle of a war waging across two universes - one where the Doctor could lose Rose Tyler for good.

Dizzy from the first episode of series two, Sunset opens her eyes, surprised to find the Tenth Doctor, who powers up the TARDIS as Rose says good-bye to Jackie and Mickey at the Powell Estate. Although Jackie and Mickey sadly watch the TARDIS fade away, inside the ship Rose is all smiles as she asks where they are going next. The Doctor tells Sunset that they are going further than they have ever gone before.

The TARDIS materializes on New Earth, in the year five billion and twenty-three. Following the destruction of Earth, humanity became nostalgic and settled a new planet with similar gravity and atmosphere in Galaxy M87. Rose is delighted at the new world, the sight of the futuristic city of New New York in front of them and the smell of apple-grass. However, the two travellers are being observed by a metal spider controlled by Chip, a small, pale man with multiple tattoos. Chip takes his orders from Lady Cassandra, who is still alive and recognises Rose.

The Doctor, Sunset and Rose head for New New York Hospital, a hospital to which the Doctor has been summoned by a telepathic message displayed on his psychic paper: "Ward 26, Please Come". The hospital is run by humanoid feline nuns belonging to an order called the Sisters of Plenitude. Trying to find the right ward, the Doctor and Rose enter separate lifts, which drench each of them in a disinfectant liquid then blow-dry them — the Doctor is completely blasé about it, while Rose has no idea and takes a while to get used to it. Chip has overridden Rose's lift controls, diverting her to the basement. He beckons her forward, calling her by name; she grabs a metal pipe as a weapon.

In the ward, Sunset and the Doctor is escorted by Sister Jatt. He sees that the patients all have diseases which are supposed to be incurable, yet the Sisters are able to cure them. The nuns are evasive about what is in the coloured solutions that are given to the patients. The Doctor recognises who has called him here — the Face of Boe. Sunset is being tended by Novice Hame, who tells the Doctor that the Face is dying of old age — the one thing the Sisters can't cure.

Rose explores the basement warily, and finds a film of a party of several men and a blond woman with a familiar voice. The same voice makes Rose turn to see Cassandra: a piece of skin stretched out on a frame over a brain jar. Cassandra had been reconstructed from another piece of her skin, and Chip — a force-grown clone devoted to Cassandra — smuggled her into the hospital, where he has been tending to her ever since. Cassandra has found out the Sisters are hiding something, and she needs Rose's help... or rather, her body.

Using a device called a psychograft, Cassandra transfers her consciousness into Rose's mind, taking control of her body but allowing her old one to die. Cassandra is initially unimpressed with her new body — protesting, "I'm a chav!" — but changes her mind after taking a good look at Rose's curves.

In the ward, Novice Hame tells the Doctor that legend says the Face has lived for thousands, perhaps millions of years and that he will give his dying message to a wanderer without a home. The Doctor realises that he fits the description in the legend, but Sunset says nothing. Below, Cassandra reads Rose's surface thoughts and discovers that the man with Rose is the Doctor with a new face. Sunset goes to meet him after putting a tiny bottle in her cleavage.

Cassandra's odd behaviour in Rose's body — at one point giving the Doctor a lusty kiss — raises the Time Lord's suspicions. They enter Intensive Care and discover the horrifying secret of the cures: hundreds of pods, each holding an artificially grown human being infected with a thousand different diseases, a human farm to breed cures. The Sisters kill any healthy enough to speak or move. The Doctor confronts Novice Hame, but she insists that these artificial humans are just "flesh", and that it was necessary to cope with the influx of patients and diseases. He demands they reverse what they have done to Rose, not realising that it is Cassandra who has taken over. Her cover blown, Cassandra reveals her identity and knocks out the Doctor with some drugged perfume.

While the Doctor is trapped in a pod about to be injected with diseases, Cassandra tries to blackmail Matron Casp, demanding money to keep quiet about the Sisters' actions. Casp declines and threatens her physically. Cassandra releases some of the plague carriers in response. They, in turn, release the rest, and the zombie-like mass of them lurch through the hospital, infecting and killing anyone they touch almost instantly. After failing to find a way out through the basement, Sunset and the Doctor demands Cassandra release Rose, threatening her with the sonic screwdriver.

Cassandra transfers her consciousness to the Doctor instead. Rose and Sunset climbs up the lift shaft with a now Cassandra-controlled Doctor, pursued by the carriers. Matron Casp tries to stop them, but is infected and falls screaming down the shaft. Cassandra transfers herself to a plague carrier so that the Doctor can use the sonic screwdriver to unseal the lift doors, then jumps back into Rose. Cassandra is shocked by the loneliness of the carriers, having read the surface thoughts of the carrier she had possessed — not being able to touch or be touched all their lives.

The Doctor and Cassandra reach Ward 26, which seems to be the only place still untouched by the carriers. He grabs all of the intravenous solutions, straps them to his body, then slides down the shaft to the lift car with Cassandra, where he empties the solutions into the disinfectant reservoir. Sunset opens the doors, luring several plague carriers inward as Cassandra starts the shower. The spray drenches the carriers, curing them, and the Doctor encourages them to pass it on; they wander back out to spread the cure to the others. A new race is born: the new humans.

The surviving Sisters are arrested by the New New York Police Department, and the cured new humans are taken into care. The Doctor remembers the Face of Boe, and runs to him. No longer dying, the Face tells him telepathically that he had grown tired of the universe, but the Doctor has taught him to look at it anew. The Doctor asks the Face about his message, but is told it can wait for their third and final meeting. The Face teleports himself away.

The Doctor and Sunset orders Cassandra to leave Rose's body at once, telling her to end it. In response, Cassandra sobs and tells the Doctor she doesn't want to die. Chip then appears — "a volunteer". Despite multiple protests from the Doctor, Cassandra transfers her consciousness into him. Unfortunately, his "half-life" body quickly fails, and Cassandra accepts her impending true death; New Earth has no place for people like her and Chip.

The Doctor does one last favour for Cassandra, taking her back to the party seen earlier, to the last time anyone had called her beautiful, to re-witness her life as it was in its prime. "Chip" approaches the Cassandra of the past and sincerely remarks on her beauty, before collapsing into the younger Cassandra's arms as she comforts "him". As Cassandra finally dies, Sunset, the Doctor and Rose silently leave in the TARDIS, letting things end, and life take its natural course.


	4. Chapter 4

Stranded on the moon: Smith and Jones

Russell T Davies's Doctor Who returns for a third series, featuring the new companion: Martha Jones (Played by Freema Agyeman). When Martha finds herself stranded on the Moon, its only the start of her adventures in time and space with the Doctor. Together, the heroes travel back in time to meet Shakespeare, do battle with Human-Dalek hybrids and get thrown to the end of the universe itself. Meanwhile, the mysterious Mr Saxon (Played by John Simm) has been preparing for his reign of terror over mankind - Martha will have to fight alone...

At the first story of the third series, medical student Martha Jones receives a series of phone calls from various members of her family. Each is calling about her brother Leo's 21st birthday party that evening. She is interrupted by two strangers (Sunset Shimmer and the Tenth Doctor) who takes off his tie, smiles and says, "Like so, see?" and walks off. Bemused, she continues on. She arrives at the Royal Hope Hospital, bumping into a black-leather-clad motorcycle rider at the entrance, who ignores her. Later, getting her lab coat from her locker, she receives an electric shock from the door.

The medical students, under the supervision of Dr Stoker, start their rounds with Florence Finnegan, who is diagnosed as being salt deficient, having had salad every day for the past week. The next patient they move onto is "John Smith", the Doctor, who is posing as a patient admitted with abdominal pain. Martha asks him why he was on Chancellor Street that morning, but he denies having been there. She wonders whether he might have a brother, but he answers, "Not anymore." Martha listens to his chest, finding the second heartbeat. He gives her a wink and she smiles back at him. Dr Stoker pushes Martha for an analysis of the patient and suggests it is always best to start with the patient's notes. As he picks up the clipboard, he receives an electric shock and Martha informs him of her own earlier shock. The other trainees all mention having similar incidents as well, but Dr Stoker mentions that it might be related to the incoming thunderstorms, continuing to ask who discovered static electricity. The Doctor correctly answers Benjamin Franklin, but goes on to ramble about how he was there and got electrocuted after being soaked so long in the rain. This prompts Dr Stoker to ask a nurse to recommend the Doctor for psychiatric.

Later, Sunset is chatting with her sister Letitia on the phone. Martha mentions that it is raining outside, but her sister says the weather is beautiful where she is, just a few streets away. She turns the corner and sees the hospital in the middle of its own storm. Martha is dismissive until her co-worker, Julia Swales, and sister both tell her that the rain is going up instead of down. There is a tremor, and when Martha looks out, she realises the hospital is on the Moon. Many of the patients and staff are running around in a panic, but Dr Stoker looks out calmly, while Florence Finnegan searches for him. Martha appeals to the patients for calm as she and Julia head for a window which Martha intends to open, whilst Sunset and the Doctor nips behind a curtain.

Julia panics, telling her that if she opens the window all the air will be sucked out. Martha calmly rationalizes that that cannot be true as the window is not airtight, so it would have happened already anyway. The Doctor, who has instantly changed into a blue pinstripe suit, pulls back the curtain and tells Martha she's correct. They discuss why they can still breathe, and the Doctor is impressed with Martha's reasoning. He asks if they have any kind of balcony; Martha tells Sunset they have one for patients to use. The Doctor invites her to go step out onto it with Sunset, warning her they might die. Martha calmly replies they might not, further winning the Doctor's approval. He then says her colleague isn't coming as she'd slow them down.

Going out on to a balcony, the Doctor asks Martha what she believes is going on. She firmly believes the situation is alien interference, noting that it would have sounded crazy a few years ago, with the appearance of the Slitheen, Sycorax and Cybermen over the past two years, it's much more believable. As she continues to refer to him as Mr Smith, the Doctor informs her of his preferred title. Martha assumes he means "Doctor Smith", but he clarifies he means just "the Doctor". However, Martha tells the Doctor she believes Sunset needs to earn that name. Saying he'd better get working then, the Doctor tosses a stone that bounces off a force field.

Martha then realises that the air in the hospital is all the air they have; over a thousand people are inside. Why would anyone isolate them to the moon and leave them to suffocate? As Martha ponders this, the Doctor tells her she can ask them herself as huge cylindrical ships appear and land outside the hospital. Black armored soldiers march out in several long lines, and the Doctor identifies them as the Judoon.

As Mr Stoker looks on, Florence enters, telling him she needs help. Mr Stoker says he does not believe he can help anyone and reflects on his plans to retire to Florida and how he believes he will never see his daughter again. Florence insists he can help her, and is joined by the two motorcycle delivery men, who are known as Slabs. Florence explains, "There are great tests to come. And terrible deeds, some of them my own". She then explains she was salt deficient because she absorbs it well. However, she needs blood now, specifically his as she thinks it will be delicious. Telling the Slabs to hold Stoker, she takes out a bendy straw. Florence advances on him as he screams...

The Judoon Troopers enter the lobby and begin scanning people. Their leader removes his helmet revealing a head like a rhinoceros, then issues orders in an alien language; the Judoon draw their guns. One of the trainee doctors, Oliver Morgenstern, attempts to speak for the humans, but the leader responds by shoving him against a wall and using a device in order to translate his own speech into English. He then scans Morgenstern, confirms him as human, and using a special marker, makes a black X on his hand. Hiding on a balcony with Martha, the Doctor says they are looking for non-humans — bad news for him, though he is also delighted to see a little shop. Martha and Sunset does not believe that he is an alien. The Doctor tells her that Judoon are police-for-hire, and if they decide that the hospital is hiding a non-human criminal, every single person in the hospital could be sentenced to death as accomplices of the alien.

The Judoon continue upwards through the building, scanning each and every human. Oliver Morgenstern tries to keep the patients calm during the procedure, but a male patient panics and strikes a Judoon from behind with a vase (which merely shatters against the alien's armour). The Judoon captain quickly charges him with physical assault, declares him guilty, and sentences him to execution, all in under 20 seconds. The soldiers comply, shooting the man with energy weapons that completely incinerate him. As the shocked Morgenstern tells them they "didn't have to do that", the commanding Judoon replies, "Justice is swift."

The Doctor attempts to get to information from a computer but finds the Judoon were stupid enough to wipe the records that could have helped find their target. He explains to Martha he had no idea they were coming and Sunset had only checked into the hospital because of the "plasma coils" — the H2O Scoop lightning — building up. He asks her if she knows anyone who has checked into the hospital in the last week with unusual symptoms; she says Dr Stoker would know and heads to his office. When she arrives there, Florence is still sucking his blood. Martha runs off but Florence orders one of the Slabs to kill her. The Doctor meets her, explaining he got the backup system working, but Sunset says she found the alien. Confused, the Doctor immediately grabs her hand and runs when the Slab comes into view.

They run into a room with an X-ray machine. The Doctor seals the door with his sonic screwdriver and tells Martha to activate the machine when he says, "Now!". The Slab breaks in and Sunset scorches it with radiation. Though Martha is concerned about the Doctor's exposure to the radiation, he explains that for a Time Lord, roentgen radiation like that in x-rays is harmless. He then absorbs the excess radiation and concentrates to expel it into one of his shoes, which he then discards. Martha, astonished, tells him he's mad, to which the Doctor replies that she is right. He then takes off the other shoe and discards that as well — "You're right. I'd look daft with one shoe".

Discovering his sonic screwdriver has been destroyed in the process, he expresses regret at first, but then throws it away when Martha calls him "Doctor" for the first time. Martha tells the Doctor about Florence, making him wonder why she'd be having a snack now. He then realises she was drinking the blood to assimilate it and mimic human biology to trick the Judoon. He decides they need to find her before the Judoon can get a scan in; it's too late. Florence has passed their scanning.

The Doctor and Martha creep around to avoid the other Slab and she wonders if he has any back up. Annoyed, the Doctor complains as they move around the corner. However, they walk straight into the Judoon, who scan the Doctor; he registers non-human, so that makes the thick-headed Judoon think he's the alien. They try to execute him but he escapes with Martha. They pass Julia, who is giving extra oxygen to a patient. She confirms the oxygen levels are decreasing.

They go back to Dr Stoker's office to find him drained of blood. The Doctor explains that Florence is a Plasmavore; she's hiding here "like Ronald Biggs in Rio". He then wonders why she would bother to pass as human, when the Judoon could still kill them all. Heading outside, he reads the signs and figures out she's gone to the MRI.

The Judoon come into the hall, declaring to kill the non-human. The Doctor tells Martha to give him time to find Florence, then kisses her and runs off, leaving a startled Martha in his wake. The Judoon catch up with her and begin scanning her. They identify her as human, but with traces of non-human DNA from the kiss; more extensive scanning is ordered.

Meanwhile the Doctor finds Florence tampering with an MRI device. He babbles a cover story, pretending to be just another amazed human who has no idea whatsoever about what is happening. She orders her remaining Slab to hold the Doctor while she explains her plan. She says the MRI device will overload, frying the brains of everyone in the hospital and half the population of Earth — her "little gift" — leaving her free to escape the Judoon because she is safe in the room. The Doctor continuing to play dumb tells her they are doing secondary scans, tricking her into drinking his blood next.

Meanwhile, the Judoon have confirmed Martha is human (giving her a docket to claim compensation in the process), and march to the MRI lab. Martha follows, arriving as the Judoon scans say the Doctor is dead. As Florence declares her humanity, Martha realises he sacrificed his life to save them. She scans Florence, who now registers as alien, having assimilated the Doctor's blood. The Judoon charge her with the murder of the Child Princess of Padrivole Regency Nine. Florence proudly admits her guilt (claiming her victim had deserved it), then orders her minion to attack the Judoon; they swiftly dispatch it. Florence tells the Judoon to enjoy their victory, but they are going to burn with her. They kill her and detect the problem, but declare their duty fulfilled and swiftly withdraw, angering Martha as the situation is their fault in the first place. The oxygen is nearly depleted and the magnetic overload is approaching critical state.

Frustrated with Sunset, Martha tries to resuscitate the Doctor herself, eventually thinking to apply compressions to both his hearts. He awakens and staggers over to the machine, reaching for his absent sonic before unplugging the machinery. Martha passes out and the Doctor picks her up, crying for the Judoon to save them as they take off. It starts raining again and the hospital is transported back to Earth where Martha's sister Tish is waiting. Martha and Sunset watches the Doctor leave and sees him head toward a strange blue box, but while she is distracted by her sister both the Doctor and the box disappear.

At Leo's party, the family are arguing over Annalise (Martha's father's girlfriend), who mocks Martha's claims of having been to the moon and cites the publicly released cover story (involving everyone in the hospital being drugged in a conspiracy). The argument spills into the street, increasing in animosity as Martha's mother vents her resentment toward Annalise, and the whole family storms off, save for Martha, who spots the Doctor. He catches her eye, and she follows him around the corner, to see him standing before the blue box. She asks him what species he is, commenting that she doesn't get to ask that question very often. When he answers Time Lord, she quips that it's not pompous at all. He then offers her a trip to thank her for her help, but she tells him she does not have the time — she cannot go off into space with him, she has to go into town the following morning and pay bills. He informs her that his ship is also a time machine. She and Martha does not believe him. To her shock, the TARDIS dematerialises, then rematerializes; the Doctor steps out, looking exactly the same as that morning, still holding his tie in his hand. Martha gapes and Sunset sputters, then asks him why he didn't just tell her not to go into work when he saw her that morning. He explains, "Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden ... except for cheap tricks."

The Doctor introduces the TARDIS. Martha says "It'll be tight quarters", and he tells her to take a look. Sunset cautiously enters the TARDIS and is amazed that it is bigger on the inside. She asks about crew; the Doctor says it's just him now, but sometimes he's had friends, and he talks about Rose, saying that they were "together" and that she is now "with her family". He says that Martha is not replacing Rose; he is just going to take her on one single trip to thank her for saving his life. She flirts with him, saying, "You're the one who kissed me." He assures her that it was a genetic transfer, and she explains that she is not remotely interested — she only goes for humans. He says, "Good." As he turns away, though, she looks quite sadly at the floor. The Doctor powers up the TARDIS. As the TARDIS flies through the time vortex it begins to shake violently, while Sunset, the Doctor and Martha shake hands over the console. The Doctor and Martha says, "Welcome aboard, Miss Sunset!", to which Sunset Shimmer replies, "It's my pleasure, Mr Smith!" and screams "Geronimo!" for the next dimension.


	5. Chapter 5

Heralding the approach of an old adversary and end of his life: The End of Time

Donna Noble reunites with the Doctor for a series of new adventures! In Series Four of Russell T Davies's Doctor Who, the Doctor and Donna travel back to Pompeii 79 AD, team up with Agatha Christine to investigate a murder and discover how dangerous the shadows can be in the universe's greatest library. However, a greater danger is lurking in the Medusa Cascade - one that could mean the end of the universe and reality itself. Meanwhile, the Doctor is warned of a deadly prophecy, heralding the approach of an old adversary and end of his life.

Part one

"It is said that in the final days of planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams..." They all forgot them, except one man. On Earth, Wilfred Mott, entering a church, has a vision of the Master laughing maniacally. Inside, he notices a stained-glass panel with the image of the TARDIS. A mysterious woman tells him the church was a monastery in the 13th century. It was attacked by a demon which was exorcised by a "sainted physician". When the woman suggests that the physician is returning, Wilf says it would make his Christmas and turns to find she has vanished. He has another vision of the Master laughing, startling him.

In the 43rd century, the Tenth Doctor and Sunset Shimmer arrives on the Ood Sphere. He is greeted by Ood Sigma, whom he tries (unsuccessfully) to make laugh by locking his TARDIS like an Earth car. The Doctor is distracted by the marvelous city the Ood have built. When Sigma says it took a hundred years, the Doctor remarks that was still way too fast for them to have advanced in such a time. Sigma takes the Doctor to the Ood Elders, who show him visions of the Master returning. Sunset Shimmer says that that's impossible; he saw his wife Lucy shoot him and he burned the corpse himself. The Ood show him an older woman taking the Master's ring and warn the Doctor of a greater danger returning from the darkness; its return precedes "the End of Time itself". Other visions are a frightened Wilfred and a "King in his Counting House". The Doctor and Sunset Shimmer rushes to Earth in the TARDIS.

Lucy Saxon has been locked in Broadfell Prison ever since she murdered her husband. One of her warders is Miss Trefusis, the woman who retrieved the Master's ring. On Christmas Eve, the prison governor brings Lucy to a chamber; most of the staff are fanatical disciples of the Master who have worked since his death to bring about his resurrection. With the ring, a biometric imprint taken from Lucy and the sacrifice of the cultists' lives, the Master is reborn in a swirl of energy. However, Lucy informs her former husband that she knew he'd come back, and her family had prepared an antidote to the potion of life. After receiving the potion from her warden ally, she hurls the potion at the Master, creating a violent explosion that destroys Broadfell Prison.

The Doctor and Sunset Shimmer arrives the following day, too late. The prison is obliterated, but the Master survived. As a result of the interrupted resurrection process, he has supernatural speed, agility and can generate electrical bolts as weapons, but his life force is in a state of constant depletion. He is unendingly hungry for any food he can find — including homeless people on a desolate construction site.

Sunset Shimmer tracks the Master to a junkyard. The Master taunts him by beating a trashcan to a four-stroke beat, then leads him on a chase through the junkyard. Wilf scours London for the Doctor with other pensioners calling themselves the "Silver Cloak", and finds him. After retreating to a specific café with him, the Doctor answers some personal questions and then tells him the prophecy of his death. He sees Donna Noble standing outside, arguing with a police officer over her ticketed car, and realises why Wilf insisted on this particular café. Wilf tells him that she's now engaged to Shaun Temple, and pleads with the Doctor to at least go up to her and say hello to her, but the Doctor sadly reminds him that if Donna remembers him for even a second, she will die.

The narrator, the face revealed, and his voice turning scornful toward humanity, speaks of the passage of Christmas Eve into Christmas Day; the players are moving into their final positions, with each human dreaming of the arrival of the final day.

Finding the Master again, the Doctor examines him to discover that the drumming in his head is not a symptom of insanity, but real. Troops appear, however, sedating and kidnapping the Master and taking him to the mansion of billionaire Joshua Naismith. Back at Wilfred's house, Donna's fiancé, Shaun, arrives. As Wilf tries to watch the Queen's Christmas speech, the mysterious woman appears to him only in place of the broadcast, ordering him to take arms; she also advises him not to tell the Doctor of what has happened, so that his life can be saved. Wilf takes his old service revolver from under his bed as the Doctor contacts him by throwing a stone at his window. Wilf shows the Doctor a book by Naismith, and the Doctor realises Donna bought the book as a present because her Time Lord subconscious is reaching out. They immediately set a course for Naismith's estate, despite Sylvia's protests. In the TARDIS, Wilf asks the Doctor why he can't go back to yesterday and catch the Master; the Doctor says he can't go back in his own timeline.

At the mansion, Naismith and his daughter, Abigail, are in possession of the "Immortality Gate", which can heal injuries and, Naismith hopes, offer life everlasting. He acquired the Gate after the fall of Torchwood. The gate came with two nuclear-powered control booths, which are set-up in a way that if a worker wishes to leave he must be replaced in the other booth. Wanting immortality for his daughter, Naismith enlists the assistance of the Master to mend the malfunctioning Gate.

The Doctor and Wilf arrive at the Naismith estate and hide the TARDIS one second out of sync, so the Master can't get to it. In the basement, they discover two of Naismith's staff, Addams and Rossiter, are undercover Vinvocci, disguised with shimmers as human; the Doctor can see through the shimmers and deactivates them with his sonic screwdriver. The Vinvocci explain the Immortality Gate is a medical device that heals lifeforms across entire planets, using a genetic template. The Doctor realises what the Master is planning to do and rushes upstairs, but is too late to stop the Master from escaping his captors and jumping into the gate. Every single human on Earth sees the Master in their minds, and when Wilf also arrives seeing the Master the Doctor gets the current worker out of the nuclear booth, then has himself replaced with Wilf, and the shielding clears the old man's mind. The Doctor asks the Master if he's planning on transmitting mind-control or hypnotic instructions, but the Master has far grander plans than that. He has modified the Gate to transmit his own genetic template across the entire planet. The gate is activated, and a wave spreads across the entire transforming every human on Earth into a clone of himself.

Donna phones Wilf, herself immune due to the metacrisis that made her part Time Lord, and tells him the same has happened to her mother and fiancé. Seeing such a sight makes Donna start to remember her travels with the Doctor in flashes, and this causes her terrible pain as her brain cannot handle her Time Lord knowledge. Wilf, frightened for Donna's life, warns the Doctor his granddaughter is starting to remember her adventures. Enraged, Wilf shouts grievances at the Master. He smugly asks if he was talking to him, while his clones inside the room chime in to ask the same question in succession, until a TV news reporter clone clearly makes his point for him: "Breaking news: I'm everyone."

As the Master's duplicates unveil themselves, the Doctor is horrified to find that everyone around him, as well as the people on TV, are now exact clones of the Master. On top of that, he has become President Obama. He quickly abuses the President's mind by blanking out a financial crisis solution just to spite the world, while a crowd of his own duplicates claps, roots, and hollers for the original Master's triumph. As the Master steps out of the gateway he tells the Doctor that the human race was always the Doctor's favourite, but it now exists no more, having been replaced with "the Master Race". Every single Master on the planet laughs together with narcissistic glee and celebration, while the original laughs in the Doctor's face. As a world full of Masters taunts and mocks him, the Doctor's face twists with extreme fury.

The Narrator announces the Master and his removal of humanity is only a small part of an approaching conflict. Suddenly, Sunset Shimmer belittles with Adagio Dazzle, the new Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords, addressing the Gallifrey Panopticon, which is packed with Time Lords. Adagio Dazzle announces that "This is the day the Time Lords return. For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of time itself!"

Part two

On a devastated Gallifrey, on the last day of the Time War, Adagio Dazzle, the new Time Lord Council reports that the Doctor still possesses "the Moment". They have foreseen that he will use it to end the war by destroying the Daleks and Gallifrey. A Time Lady suggests that this might be for the best. At the heart of the Time War, billions are dying, being resurrected and dying repeatedly. The never-ending carnage is a travesty of life. Seeing this as having no faith in his power, Adagio Dazzle uses her gauntlet to vaporize him. Exploding with anger, Sunset Shimmer decrees he will not allow himself or his race to die. Finding that the Doctor and the Master both somehow survive the Time War and end up on Earth, the Council devises a plan. They retroactively implant a link to the Master during his early childhood: the four-beat drum rhythm that has tormented him all his life. They next send a Gallifreyan "White-Point Star" diamond to Earth as a more physical link. This will let the Time Lords escape from the time-lock and their impending destruction at the hands of the Doctor.

On Earth, the Master has the Tenth Doctor and Wilfred Mott tied up. No one but the Master Race exists on Earth. Wilf's mobile phone rings. The Master finds the phone, receiving a call from Donna Noble. The Master hears Donna's voice, confused about everyone else changing. Suspicious, the Master demands to know why Donna didn't change. Wilfred reluctantly admits the metacrisis that made her part Time Lord. The Master sneers, "He does love playing with Earth girls!", then orders his copies to take her down. As Donna is cornered by the Master Race, she starts to remember her adventures with the Doctor. Instead of burning up, she emits an energy pulse that knocks everyone unconscious, including herself. Hearing nothing and seeing the Doctor smile, the Master removes his mouth gag. The Doctor calmly points out that when he erased her memories of her time with him he also left Donna, his best friend, with a defence mechanism in case something like this happened.

The Master realises the four-drum beat sound is from across time itself. He demands to know where the TARDIS is, threatening to kill Wilfred. The Doctor notes, "You know the most amazing thing about you is that after all this time, you're still bone-dead stupid." Somehow, the Master has failed to notice that the guard next to the Master is one inch too tall. The "guard" hits him in the head with the rifle, knocking him down. The guard known as Rossiter and Addams to rushes in and urges her partner to get the two men out of the mansion. Rossiter, unable to free the Doctor from the chair he is strapped to, wheels the chair bumpily down several flights of stairs to the basement, prompting the Doctor to note this as the "Worst... Rescue... Ever!".

From the basement, the four teleport to the orbiting Vinvocci ship, narrowly escaping the Master and his guards. Wilfred is amazed at being in space; the Doctor is more concerned with the Master. As soon as he gets out of his restraints, he destroys the teleported, preventing the Master Race from following them. He asks for directions to the bridge; the Master has every missile on the planet ready to fire. When they arrive, the Vinvocci prepare to leave, so the Doctor destroys the ship's systems, leaving them dead in orbit. As the Doctor begins to mend the systems, Wilfred sees the mysterious woman again, who instructs him to give the Doctor his gun.

The White-Point Star sent to Earth has been found by the Master. On the ship, the Doctor is still repairing the systems. Wilf talks to him about many things and tries to have the Doctor take the gun to save himself by killing the Master. The Doctor refuses and Wilf begins to cry over his fruitless efforts, prompting the Doctor to hug him. A broadcast from the Master reaches the ship; he has found the diamond. It can only mean the Time Lords are returning. Wilfred considers this good but the Doctor's reaction says quite differently... he grabs the gun and rushes for the control room. Wilf is confused as he thought the Time Lords were wise and peaceful. The Doctor tells him that's how he chooses to remember them; in reality the horrors of the Time War had changed the Time Lords, making them far more dangerous than any of his enemies.

The Doctor has repaired the ship, but Addams will not have them going to Earth. The Doctor seizes control of the ship and speeds towards Earth. Rossiter and Wilf take charge of the asteroid lasers and blast away the missiles the Master launches at them. Addams plots a course for Naismith's mansion and the Doctor jumps from the ship, crashing through the skylight and into the Immortality Gate room. He is too late. The Master has brought the Time Lords back.

Not only is the Master in the room, but so is the Time Lord Council. The President defames the Master by noting they have been saved by Gallery's most infamous child. The Master, fast to retort, quickly belittles the Lord President's authority and reveals that he did not call the Time Lords to Earth to save them. He intends to implant himself in them and assert control of the entire race. However, the Lord President is not amused at the Master's assertion over his power, and demonstrates how fast he can unravel his scheme. He raises his gauntlet forward. It radiates with a blue light and the Master Race begins to revert back to their unaltered human identities, causing the Master great panic as he loses his trump card.

The Time Lord President tells the humans present in the Naismith Mansion to kneel. Left powerless, the Master tries to bargain with the Time Lords by reminding them that he was their salvation. However, the whole planet shakes intensely. The President announces that "the approach begins". The Master is confused by his cryptic words; the Doctor angrily tells him that not only the whole species of Time Lords are coming back, but so is the planet. Gallifrey begins to materialize near Earth, fulfilling the prophecy that "it" is returning. Standing twice as big as Earth, it shadows over the other planet with an air of doom.

Panic erupts in the streets of London as the planet rumbles as the giant red world of Gallifrey manifests above the atmosphere. Shaun Temple goes searching for his fiancée Donna, while Sylvia Noble looks up at the ominous sky and prays for the Doctor to save them. Wilf, having left the Vinvocci shuttle, makes his way through the crumbling Naismith Mansion to find the Doctor. Refusing to stay on Earth as Gallifrey threatens to knock it out of orbit, Addams immediately readies the shuttle for takeoff. Rossiter is concerned about the Doctor's fate, but Addams shrugs and reminds him that he already said he was dying. All the residents of Naithsmith Mansion, including Joshua and his daughter, flee from the residence. Joshua spots Gallery's descent and is affixed with terror.

Wilf returns to help the Doctor, freeing a trapped man in the control booth and trapping himself in the process. The Master thinks that the Time Lords' restoration to the universe is fantastic, but the Doctor tells him that the broken time-lock means that all of the other horrors born in the last days of the Time War, which he had sealed away in the Time Lock as well, would also be released. The Daleks would not be the only additional escapees; they would be joined by the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, and the Could've Been King with his Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres, seeing the war turning to Hell, which is exactly what the Master has unleashed above Earth. The Master delights at the thought of such chaos, but the Doctor tells him that not even the Time Lords can survive such an onslaught.

The Lord President then reveals that he had planned to deal with these horrors by initiating the Ultimate Sanction; a plan for the Time Lords to survive the collapse of all creation and all time, as the paradox of Gallery's return to the universe rips the Time Vortex apart, by ascending their conscious minds beyond the need for bodies. The Master asks to join them, but the President refuses, contemptuously dismissing the Master as "Diseased... albeit a disease of [the Time Lords'] own making," and moves to kill him.

Then the Doctor aims Wilf's gun at the President, who cautions the Doctor to "choose [his] enemies wisely." Even the Master goads him on, urging him to kill the President and claim Gallifrey himself. At this, the Doctor spins and aims at the Master, who realises that the link that brought the Time Lords to Earth is inside his head, and if he dies, the link is broken and reforms the Time Lock. He points out that killing the President would have the same effect.

Finally, in this dark hour of the Doctor's life, one of the "disgraced" Time Lords covering her eyes behind the Lord President reveals herself to the Doctor; she is the mysterious woman that Wilfred had seen on a number of occasions. As she casts her gaze to a spot behind the Doctor, he not only seems to recognize her, but now knows what to do: he whirls and aims toward the Master once again.

As the Master's face falls, the Doctor orders him to get out of the way. Suddenly understanding, the Master jumps away from the White-Point Star just as the Doctor shoots it, and its destruction severs the link and reinforces the Time Lock, pulling the Time Lords back into the Time War and to their inevitable doom. The Doctor sends them "back into Hell", and identifies the Lord President as Rassilon.

As Gallifrey vanishes back into the Time Lock, Rassilon refuses to die alone and prepares to kill the Doctor. The Doctor is ready for the prophecy to be fulfilled... but the Master orders the Doctor out of the way and attacks Rassilon with his life force energy powers, shouting that Rassilon was responsible for everything that had happened to him.

As the Master counts the drums one last time, his blasts occupy Rassilon long enough for a bright flash of light to send the all of them — the Time Lords, Rassilon, Gallifrey, and the Master, back into the last day of the Last Great Time War. The Doctor struggles to his feet, weary, but happy, almost in disbelief that he has survived the prophecy.

"Knock, knock, knock, knock"

The Doctor's face turns from relief to horror as he hears the four hesitant knocks portending his death. The knocks persist, condemning him further. As he slowly turns, he sees where they are coming from — Wilfred is still trapped in the nuclear booth and wants to be let out. The Doctor, leery to approach the booth, looks at him with dread. As he suspects, Wilfred's life is in dire straits.

Upon inspection of the booth, the Doctor tells Wilf that the Master left the nuclear bolt running. The machine has gone past critical and is about to overload, which will release a lethal dose of radiation into the booth and doing anything to it, even using the sonic screwdriver, will set it off. The only way to get Wilf out alive is for the Doctor to walk into the open side of the booth and push a button to release the one-way lock, but this means the Doctor will be trapped inside in place of Wilf to endure the radiation blast. At 500,000 rads, it would inflict catastrophic damage to his body.

Wilf tells the Doctor to leave him. Since he's lived a full life, it doesn't seem worth it for his friend to give up his own just for Wilf's sake. The Doctor pretends to callously accept Wilf's offer, but knows he cannot allow the sacrifice. His spirit finally shattered, the Doctor cuts loose with a rant of anger, grief, and frustration. He rages and chokes back tears about how despite everything he's done he's still going to die just because Wilf had to climb into the booth and he's just an old man, "not remotely important"; he could just be left and the Doctor could live so much longer and "do so much more". Then he snaps out of this self-absorption and realises what he's just said. He knows he can't leave Wilf to die and concludes that a Time Lord sometimes lives too long.

Despite Wilf's protests, the Doctor enters the opposite booth and frees him, releasing the radiation into his booth. The Doctor writhes in intense pain until he finally collapses and the booth itself goes dead from the loss of power. After a few seconds, the Doctor gets up. At first, it looks like the Doctor has survived; however, the wounds he had sustained earlier from crashing through the skylight into the mansion suddenly heal themselves. The Doctor is dying and his body is preparing to regenerate.

The Doctor takes Wilf home and tells his friend, "I'll see you again, one more time." When Wilfred asks where he's going, the Doctor simply states, "To get my reward."

The Doctor travels to various places where he has brief, mostly distant encounters with recent friends. He saves Martha and Mickey (now married) from a Sontaran sniper. He pushes Luke Smith out of the path of a car, and exchanges a meaningful look with Sarah Jane. He goes to an alien bar where he connects Captain Jack with midshipman Alonso Frame. He visits a book signing for A Journal of Impossible Things by Verity Newman, Joan Redfern's great-granddaughter, to find out if Joan was happy in the end (she was). He appears after Donna's wedding, where he gives Wilfred and Sylvia the gift of a winning lottery ticket (purchased with a pound given to him by Sylvia's late husband) to pass on to her. He returns to the Powell Estate early on New Year's Day 2005, where he sees Jackie and Rose heading home after the New Year's celebrations.

After Jackie departs, he talks to Rose, keeping himself partly hidden in the shadows. When the Doctor asks her the year, she responds, "January 1, 2005". The Doctor tells that she'll "have a really great year." She smiles and leaves. The Doctor staggers away, the pain of the radiation poisoning finally setting in. A few feet away from the TARDIS, he collapses. He looks up to see Ood Sigma, standing calmly. As the Doctor struggles to his feet, Sigma tells him that the universe will sing him to his sleep and "this song is ending, but the story never ends." On the Ood homeworld, the Ood sing "Vale Decem" (Goodbye Ten) in chorus.

The Doctor and Sunset Shimmer enters the TARDIS, tossing his coat on one of the coral structures, and notices regeneration energy coming out of his right hand. He sets the TARDIS in flight as he circles the console. Tearfully, he utters: "I don't want to go..."

As the words leave him, golden energy radiates from both his hands and face as he breathes heavily. Taking a deep breath, the Doctor stretches his arms out as golden energy bursts from his hands and head and his body regenerates.

The regenerative energy shatters the TARDIS windows and set the console room ablaze, destroying columns, blowing out the lights of the console room, and raining debris down from above. The Doctor's face is consumed by the regeneration energy. The Doctor's facial features fade and morph into those of a young man with a swirl of brown hair whose eyes are closed. The young man is screaming in pain.

As the strain of the regeneration wears off, the Eleventh Doctor opens his eyes and stumbles back with a look of surprise. Sunset Shimmer quickly examines himself to make sure all his body parts are still in the same place, and his long hair causes him to think he'd become a girl for a moment (a quick feel of his Adam's apple confirms he's not). Also, much to his annoyance, he is still not ginger, but has dark hair again.

Remembering there was something important he forgot, the Doctor tries recalling what it was until another explosion forces him to his knees. Realising that what he was trying to remember was that the TARDIS is now crashing, the Doctor and Sunset Shimmer oddly seems happy as he jumps over to the monitor — it shows the ship spinning wildly towards Earth. Delighting in the chaos, the Doctor clings to the console and gleefully shouts, "Geronimo!"


	6. Chapter 6

Silence will fall: The Eleventh Hour

Series five of Doctor Who is the start of an new era of the show, now led by Steven Moffat. Starring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan as feisty companion Amy Pond, the pair visit Starship UK, search for the last of the Weeping Angels in the Maze of the Dead and form a bond with distressed artist Vincent van Gogh. However, a new threat is enclosing around the Doctor and his friends; the universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open and Silence will fall.

Suffering from the first episode on the fifth series, after the Tenth Doctor's regeneration, the TARDIS flies the major damage wildly over London as it enters the atmosphere. An explosion on the console inside causes the doors to unlock with Sunset Shimmer and the new Doctor to fall out, barely hanging onto the edge of the entrance. He tries to pull himself up as the TARDIS momentarily stabilizes, though it is still heading downwards. Getting halfway in, he notices the TARDIS is heading straight for Big Ben; using the sonic screwdriver, Sunset diverts the TARDIS just enough to miss the clock tower's spire. Pulling himself back in and locking the doors behind him, Sunset sighs in relief. However, another explosion throws him as the TARDIS spins madly off into the distance.

In 1996, Amelia Pond prays to Santa Claus in her bedroom; a crack in her wall frightens her, and she wants him to send someone to mend it. Suddenly, a crash outside catches her attention, and running to look, she sees the TARDIS lying sideways in her back garden, having crushed her shed on landing. She thanks Santa, and goes to investigate. The TARDIS doors swing open, and a grappling hook flies out, hooking onto a wheelbarrow. A soaking-wet Sunset and Doctor struggles to pull himself out. He asks for an apple as they're the only thing he can think of; his regeneration is giving him a craving, which he's never had before. As he starts climbing out, he has a look down into the TARDIS, explaining that he'd had to climb up from the library. When Amelia points out that he's soaking wet, the Doctor explains that the swimming pool is also in the library right now. The Doctor has a momentary spasm, causing him to fall to the ground before breathing out a stream of golden energy. She asks him who he is, but the Doctor doesn't know yet himself; he's "still cooking". Amelia tells him about the crack, and the Doctor introduces himself, informing her to do what he says and not wander off; Sunset promptly walks into a tree and knocks himself down — "Early days. Steering's a bit off".

Inside, the Doctor tries eating an apple, but Sunset spits out the bite he took, saying "It tastes terrible." He then requests yoghurt, but spits it out as well. Amelia is confused, as the Doctor had said it was his favourite. The Doctor explains, "New mouth, new rules".. More food follows: bacon ("Are you trying to poison me?"), baked beans (spit into the sink, saying, "Beans are evil; bad, bad beans"), bread and butter (after a hopeful smile, Sunset ends up tossing the entire plate outside, and roaring, "And stay out!"). Searching Amelia's fridge, the Doctor rejects carrots ("Are you insane?") before find just what he needs: fish fingers and custard.

While the Doctor and Sunset tries out his new delicacy, Amelia eats ice cream from the tub. The duo bonds. During their conversation, the Doctor discovers Amelia Pond — a great name, according to the Doctor, "like a name in a fairy tale" — is originally from Scotland, is orphaned, and lives with her Aunt Sharon. Upon learning that her aunt is out, the Doctor notes that because Amelia is neither afraid of him nor his strange arrival in her garden, it must be one hell of a scary crack in her wall.

Amelia takes the Doctor up to her room to examine the crack in the wall. She also offers him an apple with a smiley face carved into it, like her mother used to make for her to help her like them. Upon inspecting the crack closer, the Doctor is astonished to hear a voice on the other side of the crack transmitting the message, "Prisoner Zero has escaped." Ascertaining that an alien prison lies on the other side of the crack, he opens it fully with the sonic screwdriver and is faced with the alien guard — which appears to be a giant eyeball — who sends him a message on the psychic paper before the crack shuts once more. The message reads the same thing: "Prisoner Zero has escaped." The Doctor, realising the prisoner has escaped through Amelia's bedroom, rushes out into the corridor to investigate and deduces that he's missing something out of the corner of his eye. Before he can discover it, though, the Cloister Bell chimes.

He rushes outside with Amelia, telling her that the TARDIS' engines are in danger of phasing out of existence. Amelia wonders how a box can have engines, and the Doctor tells her his TARDIS is a time machine. She asks to come with him, but the Doctor says it's too dangerous now, and he'll do so after taking a quick five-minute trip into the future to begin repairs. Yelling both "Geronimo!", the Doctor and Sunset jumps back into the TARDIS and it dematerialises before Amelia. Excited, the little girl returns to her bedroom to collect her things, not noticing that the door at the end of the corridor — the thing the Doctor was missing — has opened...

The Doctor and Sunset returns to her garden in the daylight, realising that he has taken longer than promised; Amelia is no longer outside waiting for him. He rushes back into the house, having figured out what he was missing and knowing that Amelia's life is in danger. The Doctor tries opening the door at the end of the corridor with the sonic, yelling that Prisoner Zero is there with them. He suspects someone is behind him and turns around, only to be whacked on the head with a cricket bat.

Elsewhere, at the town hospital, nurse Rory Williams informs his supervisor, Dr Ramsden, that the coma patients have been calling out for her. She dismisses the idea, drawling that they are comatose. As she berates him, the patients repeatedly cry out "Doctor" much to her shock and horror.

The Doctor and Sunset awakes to see he and her is handcuffed to a radiator; he is confronted by a young woman in a police uniform. He inquires where Amelia Pond is, only for the police woman to angrily inform him Amelia hasn't lived there for six months, and that she lives here now.

At the hospital, Rory and Ramsden examine the patients carefully, but they still appear to be in comas. Rory attempts to inform his supervisor of other suspicious circumstances pertaining to the coma patients, even proffering his phone with the suggestion that the pictures on it can prove his theory. She impatiently orders him to take some time off.

Back in Amelia's house, the Doctor orders her to count off all of the rooms on the floor; she counts five, but the Doctor quickly informs her that there are, in fact, six — one is hidden by a perception filter. Ignoring the Doctor's warnings, she enters the sixth room. The Doctor checks his pockets for the sonic, finding it's not with him. He yells for her to check and see if it's in there; it could've rolled under the door when she hit him. The sonic is there, but Sunset is stuck in a puddle of goo on the table. She yells to him that it "must have jumped on the table", making the Doctor order her to leave the room at once. The woman picks up the sonic, but senses something is in the room with her. The Doctor orders her not to try looking at it as it will kill her if she sees it. Despite the warning, the policewoman manages to trick Prisoner Zero into revealing himself, seeing it's a serpentine alien multi-form.

She runs back to the Doctor, closing the door behind her. The Doctor locks the door with the sonic and tries to free himself, but the sonic is damaged from the goo. The young woman asks if the door will hold Prisoner Zero, making the Doctor retort, "It's an alien multi-form from outer space; they're all terrified of wood!" Seeing a light coming from under the door, the policewoman asks what the alien is doing. The Doctor doesn't know, but tells her to run and radio for backup. However, the woman reveals herself to be a kissogram, whipping off her police hat to reveal long, red hair. Prisoner Zero breaks through the door, emerging as a man with a dog; both mouths bark, much to the Doctor's amusement as it's having trouble figuring out which mouths are supposed to make the correct sounds. He then wonders where he would have gotten the pattern from as it would need to form a psychic link with someone, which takes years. He informs the alien the young woman called for backup on her police radio, but she reminds him that she can't; the Doctor explains in annoyance it was a clever lie to save them. He then says that without any backup, they pose no threat.

The prison guard is heard transmitting from outside, repeating the same message over and over: "The human residence is surrounded. Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated."

The Doctor and Sunset finally succeeds in freeing himself, and orders the woman to run away while Prisoner Zero is looking around for the source of the broadcast. The Doctor tries opening the TARDIS for equipment, but the doors won't open as it's still repairing itself. Suddenly, the Doctor notices the shed in the backyard, remembering he wrecked it when he previously crash-landed in the backyard. Licking it, he realises this "new" shed is 12 years old. He turns to the woman, demanding to know why she told him six months when it had really been twelve years; she angrily demands to know, "Why did you say five minutes?!" in a Scottish accent. The Doctor can only ask, "What?" with Sunset increasing shock; the woman is Amelia Pond! Grabbing his arm, she pulls him out of the yard and towards town.

In town, the Doctor and Sunset inquires why Amelia hit him with a cricket bat; she defends her action by explaining that their meeting led her to see four psychiatrists over the last 12 years. She bit them all when they told her he wasn't real. Their argument is cut short when they suddenly realise that the Atraxi message is broadcasting over all of the town's electronics, including cell phones, iPods, even the speaker of an ice cream van. The Doctor sees the Atraxi are not focused on simply Amelia's house as the "human residence", and immediately runs to the first house he sees with Amelia following.

The house belongs to Amelia's friend Jeff Angelo and his grandmother. The Doctor uses the psychic paper to pass himself off as a television repair man. Mrs Angelo thinks she's met the Doctor before, but Sunset tells him it's not likely, seeing as he's got a new face on. The Doctor then examines the TV and radio stations around the world with help from his sonic screwdriver, and realises, to his horror, that the warning is being broadcast all over the world in every language. The human residence is not just Amelia's town, but the entire planet! The Doctor deduces that the Atraxi will need twenty minutes, prompting Amelia to ask what for. The Doctor says, "The end of the world". While the Doctor begins thinking of a plan, everyone else watches the Atraxi message replay on the television in disbelief.

Above the Earth, the squad of Atraxi ships continue transmitting the message around the world as they search the planet for Prisoner Zero; incinerating Earth to be rid of the menace is a last resort. However, it would seem they will never be able to find it on their own as they keep resending the message.

Back on Earth, Jeff and his grandmother realise how they know the Doctor: he's the "Raggedy Doctor" that Amy used to draw cartoons of as a child. The Doctor is disappointed that, not only does she kiss people for a living, but she also dropped the name Amelia for Amy, citing its fairy tale quality — which the Doctor complimented on their last meeting — as its worst point.

The Doctor, Sunset Shimmer and Amy head to the town square, and the Doctor is annoyed to discover that Leadworth, where Amelia lives, has no technology to help him. In the middle of remarking about a duck pond without ducks, the Doctor suddenly convulses and falls to the ground, protesting that it is "too early" and he's "not ready yet". Suddenly, though, everything goes dark. The Atraxi have surrounded Earth in a force field to prepare the planet for boiling. Across the park, the Doctor notices Rory taking pictures of a man with a dog — whom the Doctor knows as Prisoner Zero — as opposed to the obscured sun, like everyone else.

The Doctor and Sunset Shimmer gleefully announces he can save the world and offers Amy a choice: she can run home and say goodbye to her loved ones, or help him. Amy opts for a different option entirely: she slams the Doctor up against a nearby car, and locks his tie in the door, trapping him. She demands to know who he is. The Doctor hands her the carved apple that she gave him when she was seven. He explains that he's a time traveler, and that everything he told her twelve years ago is true. The apple is the exact same one Amy gave him as a child, proving the Doctor is telling the truth. She releases the Doctor's tie and they run across the park to confront Rory.

Amy introduces Rory as her "sort of" boyfriend, but the Doctor is not interested. He takes Rory's cell phone, and demands to know why he was taking a picture of the man and dog rather than the sun. The Doctor gets an expected response: Rory tells him that the man can't be in the park because he's in a hospital in a coma. As Sunset Shimmer explains, a coma patient fulfills a multi-form's requirement for a living, but dormant, mind. The Doctor confronts Prisoner Zero as an Atraxi spaceship flies close to the surface of the planet. He reveals, "They're scanning for non-terrestrial technology, and nothing says non-terrestrial like the sonic screwdriver!"

He then proceeds to activate his screwdriver at full power, causing havoc all around him. Lamps breaks, car alarms sound, an old woman's mobility scooter goes flying by, a fire engine drives off without occupants, and a telephone box blows up. "I think someone's going to notice, don't you?" However, the sonic is damaged and the strain of the task causes it to burn out completely.

Prisoner Zero escapes into a sewer as the Atraxi depart, making the Doctor and Sunset rage at the incompetence of these alien jailers. Rory quickly informs the Doctor where Prisoner Zero went as Amy wonders about it living in her house for 12 years. The Doctor explains that "multi-forms can live for millennia, twelve years is a pit-stop". The Doctor is left to ponder how he can draw Prisoner Zero out into the open; he quickly comes up with an idea, instructing Amy and Rory to clear out the coma ward at the hospital. While Rory is still having trouble believing that the Doctor exists, Amy forces him to comply.

Meanwhile at the hospital, Dr Ramsden is checking on a convulsing coma patient, wondering if he is aware. Prisoner Zero materializes through the vent above and bares its fangs, preparing to strike...

The Doctor returns to Jeff's home, and uses his laptop to break in on a conference call between some of the most advanced scientific minds in the world; he proves his intellect by producing multiple scientific theories and a joke. He uses Rory's phone to write a "slightly intelligent" virus that will turn every digital display in the world to "zero" at the same time. He uploads this virus to the web via the laptop, and encourages them to spread it across the world using every web program possible. He also gives Patrick Moore's number to Mrs Angelo, and advises Jeff to erase his internet history as he has apparently been visiting some sites of questionable taste.

The Doctor commandeers a fire engine to the hospital, communicating with Amy (stuck outside the coma ward due to Prisoner Zero's attack) and instructing her to use her policewoman uniform to get past hospital security. Sunset Shimmer, Amy and Rory find the coma ward a mess. They come across a mother and her two daughters, who claim to have survived Prisoner Zero's attack on the ward by hiding in the bathroom. Amy tells the Doctor that Prisoner Zero has beaten them back; he encourages them to get out of the hospital. However, one of the daughters is now talking in her mother's voice — it's Prisoner Zero again. Admitting it has trouble with multiple mouths and baring razor-sharp teeth, the alien chases Amy and Rory back into the coma ward.

The Doctor and Sunset Shimmer arrives in the nick of time, texting "Duck!" to Amy and ramming the truck's ladder into the window. He climbs in, asking Prisoner Zero to surrender and remove its disguise. Prisoner Zero refuses, knowing the Atraxi would kill it this time anyway, and wants the entire Earth to die in flames with it. The Doctor enjoys a victory speech as the virus takes hold of the clock on the wall and changes the counter to zero; this occurs all across the world as a means of getting the Atraxi's attention. The Atraxi trace the virus back to Rory's phone, which holds pictures of all of Prisoner Zero's known human forms. The Doctor immediately uploads the photos to them. The Doctor gloats that he did all of it without the help of his TARDIS and sonic screwdriver, and with only two minutes to spare — "Who da man?" The Doctor's self-congratulatory slang gets a series of blank stares and the flustered Sunset mumbles, "Oh, it's, I'm never saying that again, fine!"

However, Prisoner Zero surprises the Doctor by utilising a link it had formed with Amy over the twelve years it had spent living in her house; forcing her into a coma, it takes a new form unknown to the Atraxi from Rory's pictures — that of the Doctor. Sunset doesn't recognize himself, but, once told, he asks Prisoner Zero why it's mimicking him when it's linked to Amy. A young Amelia comes out from behind the faux Doctor; it's mimicking both of them. The Doctor realises that Amy is dreaming about him, and her dream is enabling Prisoner Zero to take on his form. The Doctor uses his powers of telepathy to encourage the unconscious Amy to instead dream of Prisoner Zero's true form, thereby forcing it to change back. The Atraxi catch it in a paralyzing light and teleport it away. Before departing, Prisoner Zero snarls, "Silence will fall."

With the threat ended, Amy awakes, but the Doctor and Sunset calls the Atraxi back — they have breached the rules of the Shadow Proclamation by threatening to incinerate a Level 5 planet. Tired of wearing the ragged remains of his previous incarnation's outfit, the Doctor and Sunset decides to change his clothes in the hospital locker room. Despite Rory's protests, the Doctor steals the clothes, and Amy watches the naked Doctor change into his new look.

Greeting the Atraxi waiting for him on the roof, the Doctor tells them that Earth has not violated any of their laws, and is therefore not a threat to them. He then asks if the Earth is protected, and Sunset answers his own question: "You're not the first lot to have come here. Oh, there have been so many. And what you've got to ask is, 'What happened to them?'" The Atraxi display holograms of previous aliens that came to Earth and then of the Doctor's previous incarnations. At that, the Doctor coolly says, "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically... run." The Atraxi take the hint and flee in terror.

As the Doctor observes their departure, he realises that the TARDIS key is glowing; the TARDIS has recovered and awaits him. He dashes off to see the new design, being awestruck by his new console room. Sunset Shimmer decides to take it on a quick hop to the Moon to run in the replacement engines. Amy returns with Rory to her garden just in time to see the TARDIS dematerializing; she is devastated, believing that the Doctor has left her again.

Amy dreams of her younger self awaiting the Doctor's return in her garden, but wakes up at the sound of the TARDIS rematerializing outside. Racing into the garden in her nightie, she is shocked the Doctor has come back again. Even more shocking is that he kept the clothes he stole, including the bow-tie — "Bow-ties are cool." She then angrily informs him that all of the events surrounding Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi happened two years ago; thus, it has been fourteen years since fish fingers and custard, fourteen years since he first promised her a trip. Calling her "The girl who waited", the Doctor muses that she's waited long enough and asks her to join him as a companion.

Amy refuses the Doctor's offer, but changes her mind when the Doctor snaps his fingers, opening the doors of the TARDIS. Sunset Shimmer gestures inside, and she enters. She is in wonder at the TARDIS interior. To the Doctor's delight, a new sonic screwdriver pops up out of the counsel. Amy asks why Sunset and the Doctor is offering to take her with him. Sunset says he has become bred travelling alone. A small image of the crack from her bedroom appears on the scanner, but Sunset and the Doctor adjusts the scanner and the crack quickly disappears. Amy tells the Doctor that she had come to see him as a madman with a box after all these years, now thinking she was wrong. However, the Doctor tells her that, when travelling with him, there is one very important thing to remember: "I am definitely a madman with a box." Amy then makes the Doctor promise to bring her back to Leadworth by the next morning for "stuff", and they fly off into the Vortex — leaving behind the wedding dress that hangs on Amy's closet door.

"I am definitely as mad half pony with a box."

— Sunset Shimmer


	7. Chapter 7

Acquainted with "Handles", the disembodied Cyberman head: The Time of Doctor

Series seven of Doctor Who features dinosaurs, cowboys, angels and every Dalek ever, as Matt Smith returns as the Eleventh Doctor in a range of blockbuster episodes in the build-up to the show's 50th anniversary. As companions Amy and Rory depart in one the most heartbreaking episodes of Doctor Who, the Doctor becomes acquainted with the mysterious Clara Oswald; the impossible girl who cannot exist. But while on the journey to discover who Clara really is, the Doctor realises that his greatest secret is about to be discovered, a secret he will take to his grave...

The Doctor and Sunset Shimmer is among thousands of ships orbiting a planet after hearing a message being broadcast from it, a three-toned message that no-one can understand. Shrouded in a cape the Doctor visits a ship while holding a Dalek eyestalk to show his bravery, and that he comes in peace. Unfortunately, the ship belongs to Daleks, who fire at him until he teleports back to the TARDIS, where a disembodied Cyberman head that he calls "Handles" is plugged into the console. Surly after avoiding a near disaster, the Doctor removes his cape and scolds Handles for sending him to a Dalek ship while he was "Holding a broken bit of Dalek". Handles interprets everything literally as a robot head, replies he didn't specify a preference for transport.

The TARDIS phone begins to ring and Sunset Shimmer answers the call from the inside. The ship's telephone device has been incorrectly fed to the dummy handset inside the outer shell of the police box. She orders Handles to remind him that he needs to patch it back into the console unit, eventually growing exhausted of Handles inability to grasp figurative language. He then tells Handles to "Just pick a random number, express that number as a quantity of minutes, and when that time has elapsed, remind me to patch the telephone back through the console unit". Clara is calling the Doctor via the TARDIS phone, and pleads that he pretend to be her boyfriend for her family's Christmas dinner. Sunset Shimmer is having difficulty squaring things away for the event, including how to cook the turkey properly. At the same time, the Doctor has been put in a bind by having to answer her call from outside the TARDIS doors as he hovers through space among a legion of alien races. He leaves the phone hanging before his companion can clarify that she needs a Christmas date after inventing a boyfriend. The Doctor has identified the arrival of a new ship on the TARDIS scanners, and materializes the TARDIS onboard to hopefully greet the occupents in peace. His luck is worse this time: the Doctor accidentally visits a Cybership while holding Handles, where he is also shot at until he returns to the TARDIS again. The Doctor, trying to evade the volleys of laser fire from the Cybermen, and Clara, cooking a Christmas dinner under tension, agree to lend each other some assistance.

Clara caters to three people over for Christmas, her father Dave, her grandmother, and Linda. Clara doesn't let them figure out she's messed up the instructions for cooking the Christmas turkey and runs outside with relief when she hears the TARDIS materializing. The wind catches her paper crown and she lets it be carried away, more concerned that the arrival of her "boyfriend" is just in time to bail her out of a jam.

The Doctor picks up Clara from her home, but gives Clara the strangest greeting yet. Upon entering the TARDIS, Sunset Shimmer and Clara is shocked to see he is naked. She is immediately flustered by Sunset Shimmer hates nudity and tells him to stop before he embraces her, daring to ask why he has stripped. Sunset Shimmer explains by saying he is naked because he plans to go to Church. He uses a holographic filter to project an image of clothes. She takes him inside to meet her family. They appear very embarrassed in meeting him. Dave stares at his behind with a boggled look on his face; Linda is looking on with perplexed discomfort; Clara's gran gives the Doctor a good look over and starts flirting with him - her irreverent giggling suggests she's a bit tipsy. Clara initially does not understand why her friend and family are behaving weirdly, but the Doctor suggests it might be because he didn't update his holographic suit to be visible to her family. She ushers him out of the room. Clara asks for an honest opinion of her turkey; The Doctor snarks, "I think a decent vet would give it an even chance." She asks if he has an app for the turkey on his sonic screwdriver. He doesn't like her indignant remark about his screwdriver. The device "doesn't do turkey", nor does anything else. The Doctor tells Clara she would need a time machine, lapsing in consideration. She gives him an indicative glance until he quits missing the obvious solution.

They take the turkey to the TARDIS, where Clara opens up a panel near the floor. She can put the bird in the time winds beneath the console to cook it - or, possibly, bring it back to life, the Doctor points out. Dematerializing, he takes her to the planet's orbit. When asked to identify the origin of the transmission, Handles claims it is Gallifrey, which the Doctor refutes. They are then invited aboard the Papal Mainframe, a space church headed by Mother Superious Tasha Lem. The Doctor gives Clara a pill so that she too will have holographic clothes, as nudity in the Papal Mainframe is considered a mark of respect. Tasha and the Doctor discuss the signal coming from the mysterious planet, while Clara repeatedly sees and forgets several Silent's that surround her. She bursts into the room where the Doctor and Tasha are conversing, but forgets why after she does so.

Tasha sends the Doctor and Clara to the planet, but demands that he relinquish the TARDIS key he has snuck in through his holographic clothes, which she is trained to see through. She does not want the Doctor bringing any technology onto the planet, including summoning his TARDIS. The Doctor complies, and Tasha reminds him that she wants both him and Clara back in an hour. Unfortunately, Sunset Shimmer accidentally places them in the middle of an ambush of Weeping Angels hiding beneath the snowdrifts. Here, Clara is nearly captured by the ankle in the grip of one of the Angels, but the Doctor helps her wriggle lose. The Angels surround them as the heavy snowfall keeps blinding their vision, but the Doctor suddenly pulls off his entire coif to reveal he is bald! Inside his wig is a spare key that lets him summon the TARDIS, which materializes around them. Clara is stunned at the Doctor's hairless head. He drapes his wig over Handles and reveals that he pulled the "old key in the coif" trick on Tasha Lem. Clara suspects that he just got bored and shaved his head, which he somewhat reluctantly confirms. Clara asks if that's what happened to his eyebrows as well. The Doctor replies that they're "just delicate". Clara is also bothered by the Doctor's bald head because his prominent ears now stick out like "rocket fins", and urges him to don the wig again.

After they are properly outfitted in winter clothes, they escape to a town called Christmas, a small, quaint community with festive holiday decorations. The Doctor notices that it is 2:00 p.m., but dark outside, so he sums up that the days on the planet must be short. Meeting a married couple in Christmas, Abramal and Marta, the Doctor and Clara embarrassingly blurt out things they would normally keep to themselves. The couple explains the planet is surrounded by a truth field, so no one can lie, especially around the clock tower. It makes life easier for Marta, but not for Abramal. The Doctor begins to track the origin of the signal to the tower, with a tinge of apprehension to find out what is wrong with such a nice place.

As the Doctor and Clara enter the clock tower, the Doctor has a look of gleeful curiosity, until a particular object slips into the corner of his eye. He turns around and looks at the wall with a bitter stare. Something he has dreaded has returned. Anticipating it, he utters, "There you are. What took you so long?" Clara asks why he is so fascinated by a crack in the wall... Glancing forward, the Doctor has found one last crack in time.

Feeling the seam of this crack, he remembers the many times the cracks have haunted him since he first began life in this incarnation, from the moment he met young Amelia Pond to the crash of the Byzantium, learning that the day the TARDIS exploded would be on June 26, 2010. One more memory of the past reveals what has lurked behind the door of his room on the Minotaur's prison ship. He saw the image of a crack in time on the wall, reflected as a mysterious white glint in his eyes. The Doctor explains his history with the cracks to Clara. He knew he would see the crack in time again, because he felt a personal level of responsibility since it was his TARDIS that blew up the universe. Although the universe had been rebooted, the event had left scar tissue from the damage inflicted, and created a structural weakness in the whole universe.

Sunset Shimmer figures out that someone is on the other side of this crack, trying to break into their universe from a separate one through the weakest point. However, it isn't just someone breaking in - it is someone breaking backin. The Doctor asks Handles why he said the message was from Gallifrey. Handles replies that his analysis, according to the TARDIS data banks, matches Gallifreyan origin. Clara is confused, thinking the Doctor told him Gallifrey is gone, but the Doctor reminds her he said it was in another universe. This final crack in time is where the message is being broadcast, and where the truth field is coming from. Suspecting that the Time Lords could be sending the message, both Sunset Shimmer and Clara exchange anxious looks.

The Doctor takes out a copy of the Seal of the High Council he once took from The Master in the Death Zone. He attaches it to Handles to have him decode the message using an algorithm imprinted in the seal's atomic structure. Handles analyses that the message is a request for information - in other words, a question. Annoyed, the Doctor bickers at Handles for not being frank, but the Cyber-head continues to relay its analysis. The message is being sent through all of space and time on a repeating cycle, which the Doctor deduces is the "oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight", as Dorium Maldovar once prophesized to him. Handles issues a warning that the translation will be available to anyone in range of listening. He begins to utter a version of the three tones refined into three constant syllables, which then refines further into the voice of The General. The message is a repeat of the same question: "Doctor who?"

The Doctor realises that this is the Time Lords, trapped in the pocket universe he and his previous selves sent them to, trying to get out. They are issuing a question only he can answer, and set in place a truth field so he must answer without lying. If the Doctor speaks his real name, the Time Lords will know they are in the right place and come through, and all the alien species above will descend on the planet and begin the Time War anew. Horrified, the Doctor figures out the true stakes of the prophecy: he is facing the threat of all hell coming down on his and Clara's heads if the Time Lords come back. He has Clara take a device to the TARDIS and place it in the charger slot for the sonic screwdriver. With half the universe already above the planet, waiting to open fire, he strongly pleads with her to do as he says. Clara returns to the TARDIS and inserts the device in the charger for the sonic screwdriver. The TARDIS goes into autopilot and it returns to Earth, but as soon as she exits the doors, it begins to dematerialise without her. The Doctor has tricked Clara into plugging a device into the TARDIS that transports her home, for her own safety. However, Clara refuses to abandon the Doctor. She sticks her key into the door lock and grabs hold of the TARDIS before it can leave her behind.

Tasha contacts the Doctor through a hologram projected in the sky, telling him the return of the Time Lords cannot happen. She is aware this would restart the Time War again, which as a peacekeeper the Church cannot allow. The Doctor refuses to withdraw and let his enemies destroy the planet. He asks her to answer one last question - the name of the planet he's on. She reveals that the planet is Trenzalore – the place where he is supposed to die. Despite his plea that the Time Lords are asking for his help, Tasha will not let him rescue them due to the terrible consequences the Church faces. Unable to reason with her, he chooses to stand his ground on Trenzalore and uses his sonic screwdriver to begin ringing the clock tower bell in vigilance. He summons the whole populace of Christmas to the sound of the bell and declares that he's the new sheriff in town who will defend them. This will be where he has his last stand, to protect his people and the innocent citizens of Christmas from the attackers above, and he is the only one capable of stopping them. The Doctor is about to be sucked into a gargantuan battle that Clara cannot suffer through. Meanwhile, Tasha Lem issues forth an unscheduled faith change to the Church. They will now be dedicated to the solitary cause of bringing silence - the Doctor's silence. He must not be allowed to speak his name before the Time Lords, and war will not begin. She and the congregation exclaim, "Silence will fall!"

For the next three hundred years, the Doctor defends Trenzalore from his enemies. He defends Christmas in a number of ways. One time he disabled the cloaking device on a Sontaran vehicle, allowing the Church to destroy it the instant the vehicle registered on their technology scan. Lacking competence, neither Sontaran noticed they had been revealed until it was too late. Both were promptly wiped off the planet and received a posthumous apology from Colonel Albero for their deaths as they were sorted to the appropriate afterlife. Following this victory, the Doctor trapped a Weeping Angel in front of a mirror bearing the message, "With Love from the Doctor", in marker, where it would remain indefinitely quantum-locked by peering at its own reflection. On another occasion, Sunset Shimmer tricked by the Wooden Cyberman, created to become too primitive to set off the alarm, into destroying itself after using both the sonic screwdriver and the truth field to make it think its gun had been turned around. Equipped with a flamethrower instead of laser technology, it blew a gaping hole in its chest. The Doctor told the Cyberman to inform the rest of the Cyberiad that "the Doctor stays" before it ceased functions. Not always fighting, the Doctor found time to have a party with the village in his honour. He held a play and entertained the children of Christmas as the puppet Doctor who fought a Monoid. He even taught them the drunk giraffe dance and how "'cool' was not cool."

According to Tasha, the Doctor seemed to forget of his life before the siege. He spent his spare time fixing the toys the children played with - sometimes a little too much - and grew close to a child called Barnable. Sunset Shimmer fixed a leak in a barn belonging to Barnable's father, though once again, he went beyond the necessary repairs and turned it dimensionally transcendental, hoping the word won't get out, or else everyone in town might ask him for one of their own. However, the Doctor's lengthy stay on Christmas has distracted him from the life he left behind, which returns when he least expects it. He hears the TARDIS coming back a good three hundred years late, which worries Barnable he may be leaving soon. On the contrary, someone else has arrived, despite the Doctor's efforts to protect her.

Clara returns after gripping to the sides of the TARDIS, which forces the TARDIS to increase the shields and bring her back through the Time Vortex, slowing it down considerably on its journey back to Trenzalore. She meets a Doctor who has spent three centuries defending the town of Christmas. He now has grey hair and wrinkles, and needs a walking stick. The Doctor and Clara at first exchange angry remarks - Clara is strongly upset about being left behind without even a good-bye, and Sunset Shimmer becomes irritated that she returned to Trenzalore. However, the two of them can't help but embrace in a warm hug.

The Doctor decides to take Clara to his new home on Trenzalore, the bell tower in Christmas. He has taken residence in the same room with the time crack, now adorned with hundreds of drawings given to him by the children of Christmas. Each drawing shows a child's love for the Doctor and provides a peek back at his bygone adventures, after recounting many stories over the passing centuries to entertain the kids. However, Handles has heavily aged alongside the wearisome Doctor and barely functions. The rusted Cyberman head announces he has developed a fault through his stuttering electronic voice, warning that he doesn't have much time left.

Shortly after, Handles dies – but not before finally reminding him that he needs to patch the TARDIS phone back into the console. The Cyberman ceases to function, and the Doctor despairingly shakes his head. Holding back tears, he quietly says, "Thank you, Handles, and well done. Well done, mate."

The sun rises over Trenzalore, and the Doctor informs Clara that he watches the sunrise every day to remind himself of what he is protecting. Though she thinks it is a beautiful sight, Clara is pressed to ask the Doctor why he decided to drop her back on Earth. The Doctor feared that if he had allowed her to stay, he'd outlive her or lose her in battle, and he would have buried her long ago. Clara defiantly tells the Doctor she would have found a way to prevent him from being stuck on Trenzalore, but the Doctor is quick to disagree - "Everyone gets stuck somewhere eventually, Clara. Everything ends."

Clara still isn't convinced it applies to the Doctor, even though he has grown quite old. She says he cannot die, and instead regenerates with a new face each time he is about to perish. The Doctor grimly reveals to her that Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times. She surmises that this shouldn't be a problem, as he is the "Eleventh Doctor". He reminds her of "Captain Grumpy", his Time War incarnation; although he didn't call himself "the Doctor", it still counted as using up a regeneration. So, too, did the Tenth Doctor's aborted regeneration. He is therefore on his thirteenth, and final life. He and Clara then watch the sun rise for a few minutes, until a thunderous boom from overhead reveals Tasha Lem's holographic face in the sky. She announces to the Doctor that the newly-renamed Church of the Silence is requesting parley. The Doctor is being allowed to meet with her to discuss a truce, with his rights and safety sanctified. Tasha offers to have him transported to the Papal Mainframe, but the Doctor declines, knowing he's got his TARDIS back. By the time Tasha deactivates her hologram, the sun has already vanished over the horizons of Trenzalore. The Doctor reminds his companion, "Everything ends, Clara. And sooner than you think."

The Doctor, Sunset Shimmer and Clara prepare to board the TARDIS, where they find Barnable guarding it, wondering if the Doctor will leave Christmas. He gives the boy assurance that he's known the Doctor long enough to trust he will return. Barnable promises to wait for him. Clara and the Doctor then arrive back on the Papal Mainframe, now converted into the Church of the Silence, where Tasha still remains in power as a youthful Mother Superious. When Clara mentions her youthfulness, the Doctor simply replies that she is "against" ageing. After centuries of battle with the Church, the Doctor now understands the origin of the Silent's. The memory-proof race of aliens are genetically-engineered confessional priests, whom Church members can confess their sins to, then later forget.

When the Doctor returns to Tasha's chapel, he discusses the parlay at a table (as seen when he first arrived at the Papal Mainframe). Tasha explains a renegade faction of the priests belonging to a sect of the Church called the Kovarian Chapter broke away and travelled back in time to stop the Doctor from reaching Trenzalore. However, Tasha has been helpless against the onslaught of the Doctor's enemies since his long battle began. The Mainframe itself was attacked by the Daleks three days prior to their meeting. The Doctor asks why she didn't call for help. Tasha replies, "I tried. I died in this room, screaming your name. Oh... I died. It's funny the things that slip your mind..."

With those words, the horrified Doctor realises that Tasha and her crew have been killed by the Daleks and turned into Dalek puppets. Eyestalks burst out from their skulls - even the Silent's. This is a trap set by the Daleks to snare their greatest enemy.

As Tasha succumbs to the puppet conversion, three Daleks enter the chapel and accost the Doctor. He is surprised that they now remember who he is, after Oswin Oswald purged the Dalek Pathweb of their information about him. The Daleks have reasserted their memories after harvesting replacement information from Tasha Lem's cadaver. Because of this, the Daleks have redoubled their efforts to stop him from saving Gallifrey, well aware their nemesis race, the Time Lords, could return to wipe them out.

The Doctor prepares to surrender, allowing the Daleks to think he would let Clara be exterminated. Clara plays along with the bluff, realising the Daleks would kill her even if he tried to save her rather than betray. The Doctor then praises Clara for being a strong-willed woman, but also berates Tasha, claiming her Church was useless and she was too spineless to be of any help to him in the war. The insults urge Tasha to regain her mind, subconsciously furious at the Doctor, giving him a fierce slap. She then uses her puppet form's gunstick to wipe out the Daleks. The Doctor kisses her and apologises for having to make her angry, encouraging Tasha to keep fighting the Dalek programming still inside her. As he and Clara escape to the TARDIS with Tasha's help, Tasha protests that she has kept fighting for the sake of the peace, not the Doctor and his ego.

Inside the TARDIS, a timer bell dings, alerting the Doctor that Clara's turkey has finished cooking - or woken up. Before Sunset Shimmer goes to check on it, she asks the Doctor to promise her he will never leave her behind again. He complies. As she goes down to the lower level, the Doctor sees Barnable still beside his TARDIS. The Doctor quietly replaces the charger inside the TARDIS and returns to Christmas town. While Sunset Shimmer thinks he has stepped out, she exits the TARDIS with turkey in hand only to find that she is back on Earth. He has tricked her into leaving his company for the second time, and the TARDIS soon makes a return flight to Trenzalore right after she exits it with her cooked turkey. This time, she really is stranded, without any means of return.

On Trenzalore, Barnable questions why the Doctor has brought back his TARDIS if he doesn't intend to leave the planet. He explains it is a reminder that he might leave someday.

The Doctor continues his long war against his enemies, as a great many years pass. Now on good terms with the Church again, he is able to ally with their soldiers and the Silent's instead of facing them as villains. Together they defend the planet from attackers above, until only the Daleks are left. The troops of the Church help the Doctor defend Christmas against aerial attacks by fighter pods and land assaults from Dalek tanks. Countless casualties mount up, but the Doctor maintains his stand on Trenzalore.

Meanwhile, having returned to her family (who assume she's broken up with her "boyfriend"), Clara asks her grandmother about her late husband, who consoles her with memories of him. Clara cries when she notices how similar they sound to her own memories of being with the Doctor. Sunset Shimmer then hears the TARDIS engines and joyfully runs outside, thinking the Doctor has changed his mind. Instead, she finds the TARDIS piloted by Tasha, claiming, "Flying the TARDIS is easy... it's flying the Doctor that's hard." She returns Clara to Trenzalore to see the Doctor one last time, saying she could not let him die alone.

Clara reenters the Doctor's old sanctuary in the bell tower to find an elderly man toiling away at fixing a child's wooden horse. After announcing her presence to him, he turns around to reveal a heavily wrinkled face with long, balding white hair, glasses perched on his nose to help his weakening eyes. The Doctor is now very old and often acts slow and slightly confused. Clara gives the Doctor a cracker from her family's Christmas festivities and they open it together. She recites the poem inside with the hope it may cheer him up, but the Doctor doesn't get it, wishing for a knock-knock joke.

From above, a huge Dalek mother ship and several Dalek fighter pods surround the clock tower. A booming Dalek voice from the mother ship demands for the Doctor to show himself. Suffering memory issues, he mistakes a young man for Barnable who comes into his tower dwelling to warn him of the Daleks' arrival. Sadly, Barnable is long gone and the Doctor can't recognize that fact, and buys him off with the notion he has a plan. Unfortunately, the senescent Doctor has no more plans left after his 900 years on Trenzalore. At the very brink of his final incarnation's death from natural causes, he still won't release the Time Lords, knowing that it would mean hell for all the universe. All his enemies have withdrawn save for the Daleks, whom he has been fighting with the aid of the Silence. Only the Daleks have chosen to remain in battle with the Doctor, because unlike the other alien races who have fought the Doctor, they have a very personal stake in the siege. The Doctor is threatening to unleash their nemesis species from the crack in time. After experiencing the fury of the warring Time Lords once, the Daleks will see this battle through to the end if it means preventing another Time War with their greatest enemies.

The Daleks launch their final attack and the Doctor, finally out of ideas, weapons and regenerations, goes to meet them. The Doctor is committed to dying, thinking this is the way things are fated. Clara refuses to let him do this, but the Doctor believes death is unavoidable now that the Time Lords are removed from the universe and cannot change the course of events. Sunset Shimmer asks Clara to promise she will stay hidden and safe, calling it "one last victory". Intending to impart a final farewell on Clara, he wipes her tears as he says, "Allow me that. Give me that, my impossible girl. Thank you. And goodbye." In his worn out clothes, the Doctor slowly totters up the bell tower with his walking stick to face his extermination, expecting it to be a while before his death since the Daleks "take so long to say anything".

After he leaves, a distraught Clara returns to the crack in time. She has not given up hope on the Doctor's survival. Clara begins pleading with the Time Lords to save the Doctor, saying: "You've been asking a question, and it's time someone told you you've been getting it wrong. His name is the Doctor! All the name he needs, everything you need to know about him, and if you love him - and you should - help him!" The crack abruptly closes.

At the top of Christmas's clock tower, the Doctor is preparing to die. He admits defeat to the Daleks, and jests that it took them so long to plot a proper way to kill him that he's doing it himself by dying of old age. The Dalek voice from the mother ship announces with certainty, "You will die, and the Time Lords will never return." Despite these words, the Doctor has not been shot down where he stands. Rightfully so, the Daleks lack the courage to finish him off, thinking he might have some trick up his sleeve, until the Doctor explicitly states he has nothing left to stop them this time. The Daleks begin opening fire on the town below, but still desist from attacking him directly.

As the Daleks begin their attack, however, a new, much larger crack appears in the night sky, apparently unnoticed by all but the Doctor. Golden energy emanates out of the crack and enters the Doctor's mouth. The Doctor's eyes widen in surprise as he realises what the Time Lords have just done, and his mood completely turns over when he sees his hands glowing with the all-too familiar force that has saved him from death twelve times before: the Doctor has been granted a new cycle of regenerations. Unaware of this, the Daleks begin to taunt him: "The rules of regeneration are known! You have expended all your lives!" Suddenly reinvigorated, the Doctor begins to dance around and act like his old self again. He twirls his walking stick and defies his enemies with the mocking challenge "Sorry? What did you say? Did you mention the rules?" before giving them a little advice: "Tell me the truth if you think you know it, lay down the law if you're feeling brave, but, Daleks - Never. Ever. Tell Me 'THE RULES'!". He begins boasting that his unprecedented thirteenth regeneration is "breaking some serious science" and is "gonna be a whopper"!

As his regeneration begins, Christmas town's clock strikes twelve. The Daleks begin to panic as they realise he really is regenerating, and the Doctor triumphantly roars: "If you want my life - Come. And. GET IT!" He whips his arms around and channels his regeneration energy to destroy the Daleks and their ship. Several Dalek fighter pods are blown right out of the sky, and Clara rushes out to tell the people of Christmas to hurry and take shelter from the chaos about to begin. All of the citizens dive into the tower as obliterated Daleks and explosions rain down on the townscape. With a final, devastating blast to the Dalek mother ship, he shouts into the sky: "Love from Gallifrey, BOYS!" The Doctor directs all of the energy he has left through his hands and head. His finishing assault climbs very far into the air and wreaks havoc on the gunship, eliminating it from the skyline. An enormous explosion results from this regeneration energy, wiping out every single Dalek attacking the planet as the shockwave blows them to smithereens. The ground quakes, embankments of snow rumble loose in cascading avalanches, and the top of the clock tower is blown apart. The force of the explosion is so powerful, it even rocks the TARDIS.

In the aftermath of the Doctor's regenerative back draft, the shaken villagers of Christmas emerge from hiding. A woman sobs from the impact of what has happened while others work quickly to clean up the scene of bedlam and rescue others needing help. Clara and Sunset Shimmer quickly returns to the TARDIS in search of the Doctor, finding the call box door open, where the outside phone mysteriously lies off the hook; she puts it back where it should rest and goes inside. She sees the Doctor's worn out winter clothes splayed on the TARDIS console floor, while a nearly-empty bowl of fish fingers and custard sits on the control panel. She hears footsteps coming up the stairs. She turns to see the Doctor, with his current incarnation's youth restored and dressed in his normal clothes. Clara's joy at seeing a "young" Doctor quickly fades when he informs her that this is "a reset" - the process of change has started, and cannot be stopped. He enjoys one last taste of the fish custard, a meal he relished at the very start of his now fading incarnation. Clara is saddened greatly when she realises that the Doctor she knew is about to disappear. However, the Doctor is not upset about the regeneration yet to come. He understands how fast everything about him and life itself can be gone in a moment, because it is always changing. He comforts Clara by telling her that times change, and so must he. The Doctor's hand begins to glow with regenerative energy and he smiles.

Suddenly, he sees a little girl running through the balcony of the TARDIS with cheerful giggling, with every inch of its walls covered in her drawings of their adventures together, alongside those given to him by the children on Trenzalore. Aloud, he calls out to Amelia. Confused, Clara asks who Amelia is, and he describes her as "the first face this face saw." Happily awaiting the regeneration, the Doctor gives this incarnation a fond eulogy. He assures Clara, "We all change, when you think about it, we are all different people, all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good! You've gotta keep moving, as long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me." He then sees an adult Amy Pond in the TARDIS. Amy descends from the balcony, places her hand against his cheek, and tells him, "Raggedy Man... good night."

The Doctor places his hand against her face as well, only to see he's reaching out for air; his vision of Amy and the drawing-covered TARDIS wall was a hallucination. Ready to move on and become a new man, the Eleventh Doctor removes his cherished bow-tie, dropping it to the floor, before seemingly focusing on his impending regeneration. In tears, Sunset Shimmer and Clara begs him not to change and reaches out to him. Extending his hand - now glowing with regeneration energy - towards her, he smiles wearily and whispers "Hey...", and then suddenly jerks his head back...

In nearly an instant, accompanied by a quick flash of golden light and an explosive sound, the Doctor completely changes from the youthful, geeky alien Clara knew, to a tall, gaunt, older-looking man with short silver hair and the impeccable razor-sharp gaze of the mysterious Doctor from the future that joined the previous twelve to rescue Gallifrey from the Time War. Utterly dumbfounded by this new face, Clara can only watch open-mouthed as the Twelfth Doctor stares her right in the eyes, before stumbling backwards with a grunt of pain, clutching his abdomen. He proclaims, "KIDNEYS! I've got new kidneys! I don't like the colour..." Bewildered, Sunset Shimmer and Clara can only ask if it's the colour of his kidneys he doesn't like. Suddenly, the TARDIS begins shaking. The new Doctor not only tells her that they're likely to be crashing into something, but to her horror, he says "Stay calm. Just one question. Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"


	8. Chapter 8

Epilogue: The question posed by the Twelfth Doctor: Deep Breath

"Am I a good man?" is the question posed by the Twelfth Doctor - as played by Peter Capaldi - in the eighth series of Doctor Who. Journeying on with impossible girl Clara Oswald, the pair take on clockwork droids in Victorian London, have an encounter with Robin Hood, break into the most secure bank in the universe and battle monsters that can hide in the walls. But little do the pair know of a mysterious woman named Missy, who welcomes the recently deceased into heaven and keeps a close eye on the Doctor and Clara. But who is Missy? And how can the afterlife really exist?

In a post-credits scene from the first episode on the eighth series. A Tyrannosaurus is rampaging in the River Thames, much to the shock of onlookers. When the Paternoster Gang arrives in the late Victorian London, Jenny notices the beast has something lodged in its throat. It coughs up the TARDIS, which lands upright on the banks of the river. Madame Vastra gives a policeman a bagful of devices which will keep the dinosaur contained, before she, Jenny and Strax descend to the bank. Strax knocks on the door of the TARDIS and the newly regenerated Doctor appears. He swooshes Strax, telling him that he thinks he has escaped the dinosaur. He and a dishevelled Clara leave the TARDIS, and the Doctor refamiliarises himself with Sunset and the Gang - albeit poorly, due to his post-regenerative confusion. After failing to identify his companions and complaining that Vastra's sonic shields are giving his "lady friend" (the dinosaur) a headache, the Doctor suggests that everyone "take five". He and Sunset falls down unconscious. The Gang learns from Clara that this strange man is indeed the Doctor, and Vastra comments "Here we go again...".

Back at Vastra's house, the Doctor and Sunset is conscious again and dressed in a Victorian nightshirt, but hyperactive and puzzled by the bedroom he's in, demanding to know its purpose during waking hours. He is also annoyed about the accent Jenny and Clara speak with, as his accent is now Scottish. Vastra, however, talks "properly" by adopting a Scottish accent which pleases the Doctor, before using a psychic link to trick him into sleep. Clara is more troubled by the fact that the Doctor's new face looks old and different when compared to how young he was in his last incarnation. Meanwhile the Tyrannosaurus is making moaning sounds in the city; the Doctor then seems to be translating the moans in his sleep, perhaps also echoing his own situation. Strax comes in and escorts Clara to Sunset with Madame Vastra, who asked to have a word with her.

Outside on the street, people are still looking at the giant dinosaur. A man called Alf guesses the Tyrannosaurus is part of a government plan, in conversation with his wife. Alf then says to a mysterious man there is something wrong with the dinosaur's neck, that makes it look unreal. The man replies that Alf has good eyes, and he needs them as a gift to replace his bad eyes. He reveals the other side of his face - it looks like a clockwork robot - and then proceeds to remove Alf's eyes.

Vastra, who is now wearing her veil, questions Sunset about how Clara and the Doctor came to be in Victorian London after Trenzalore. When Sunset Shimmer asks why Vastra has put on her veil, she is told she wears it to be accepted because of her inhuman appearance. The conversation escalates as Vastra is judging her, but Vastra retorts by implying that Clara is judging the Doctor because he is no longer the handsome young man she met. Eventually Clara explodes, insisting she not be judged - only to be applauded by Jenny and Vastra for finally showing her true colours. Vastra explains that the Doctor needs all of them - especially Clara - as anchors to find himself again. When Clara realizes that Vastra has removed her veil, she wonders when that happened; "When you stopped noticing it" is the answer.

Upstairs, the Doctor wakes up smelling something. After sniffing about on the floor, he finds a piece of chalk. He writes calculations with the chalk around the whole room, including on the walls and floor. Sunset Shimmer then escapes through the window to check on the dinosaur (the door being "Boring. Not me"). Shouting across London at the dinosaur, he apologises that his time machine got stuck in its throat and vows to get it home safely. Just as he says that, it spontaneously bursts into flames and is killed, prompting the Doctor to action. He races to the edge of the roof and jumps, landing in a tree.

Falling from the tree and getting stuck on a branch, he stops a horse and carriage and asks that he will need to relieve him of his "pet", much to the driver's confusion. The Doctor replies that he was talking to the horse. Jumping onto the horse, he uses the sonic screwdriver to cut the ropes linking the horse to the carriage. As Sunset Shimmer struggles to properly control the horse (and also fails to tell his "new hands" apart), the Paternoster Gang and Clara unknowingly follow him. The Doctor arrives at the bridge and quietly observes as the dinosaur burns in the flames. Clara questions the Doctor's sudden appearance here. As Vastra locks the carriage like a car remote, she begins to question who would do such a thing. The Doctor points out that that's not the real question, nor is "how". The real question is: "Have there been any similar murders?" Vastra admits that there have been many similar ones. The Doctor then points out a man who seems unmoved by the situation, unlike the other onlookers, before jumping into the water. Clara worries that he'll drown, but Vastra doubts it, claiming that the Doctor has taken up the case.

Clara wakes up the next morning and discovers with Strax and Sunset Shimmer threatening workers with their lives when they return with the TARDIS. Strax informs Clara he had it brought here because the Doctor will always come looking for his time machine and takes it too far when he says that once he returns, they'll melt him with acid. Clara asks for "The Times" newspaper to be sent up to her. Sunset Shimmer immediately throws the paper up to Clara, striking her in the face and knocking her down.

Now in a Victorian dress, Clara makes her way downstairs and meets Jenny, who warns her not to disturb Vastra as she is investigating other cases - including having a poisoner for dinner (literally). Clara encounters Strax once again, who offers her water. Clara declines with Strax gives her the bucket of water he has been using to mop the floor (and had previously bathed in). Strax then gives her an unexpected medical examination, while also peeking inside her head and seeing what she's thinking.

In a dirty alley somewhere, Sunset Shimmer examines his new face in a small mirror and rummages through debris. As a disheveled old man stumbles by, the Doctor is confused over why he now has this face. Ranting and belligerent, he asks the man's input on why he gave himself this face, noting that it is somehow familiar to him. The Doctor asks the confused and frightened man if he has seen the Doctor's face before; the old man indicates he has not. Intimidated by it, he says he doesn't like the Doctor's face—the Doctor's not too fond of it either, due to a new, potent set of eyebrows that seem like they want to cede from the rest of his face and "set up their own independent state of eyebrows". Playing along with his madness, the old man agrees he has mighty eyebrows. The Doctor then notes that he has a Scottish accent, which the man confirms. The Doctor rants on that he can now complain about things, before demanding the man's coat. The man whimpers in fear, until the Doctor and Sunset Shimmer brings up a newspaper, showing the article "Fourth Case of Spontaneous Combustion".

Jenny is posing, supposedly for a painting for Vastra, but discovers her wife is working on a map of the various deaths. Not surprisingly, she isn't impressed, and Vastra is hard-pressed to explain herself when Clara barges in. There's a notice in the paper addressed to the "Impossible Girl" - the Doctor's nickname for her. Unfortunately, Sunset Shimmer doesn't say where to meet. After some work, Clara figures it out by looking at the opposite side of the page; it's a restaurant called Mancini's.

Clara arrives at the restaurant and is soon joined by the Doctor, now wearing the tramp's coat. The two talk calmly, with the Doctor noting that whoever put an ad in the paper as a message is an egomaniac. Sunset Shimmer accepts this as an apology but the Doctor thought he was referring to her. They argue before realizing that neither of them placed the ad. While Clara is upset over the Doctor's words, the Doctor is more interested in their surroundings. He makes Clara look at the diners and notice how they are mechanically cutting food and bringing silverware to their mouths - but not actually eating anything. The Doctor then uses a hair from his head, then Clara's, to test the atmosphere, and realizes the diners are not breathing either. The two stand up to leave, only for every diner in unison to rise and block them off, forcing them to sit again. A waiter comes over to scan the Doctor with an advanced gadget and recite various body parts. Clara wonders why such things would be on the menu, but the Doctor informs her they are the menu. He reaches up to remove the waiter's face, revealing a mechanical form underneath. He presses the face to Clara's own to show her - to her horror - that it's an actual human face. The waiter locks the two down into their chairs as the booth lowers itself into a tunnel.

Finding themselves in a chamber below the restaurant, the Doctor manages to get his sonic screwdriver out, which Clara kicks (painfully) into his lap. He uses it to free them, Clara asking why the screwdriver wasn't voice-activated before realizing the Doctor had forgotten it was. They make their way to a chamber and find the Half-Faced Droid from before sitting in a chair. Around him are pods containing other droids, all dressed and resembling real Londoners. Examining the Droid, the Doctor realizes it's recharging and this is not a case of a man building himself into a cyborg - but a robot who adds human flesh to himself! The restaurant is their way of capturing random humans to harvest their flesh and organs for themselves, since they require a constant supply of spares to replace their rotting organic parts. The cases of "spontaneous combustion" are their way of killing the victims quickly to hide the evidence of mutilation, including the dinosaur.

The Droid begins to awaken and the Doctor and Clara start to run. A door slides closed between them, Clara begging the Doctor to let her in but the Doctor shocks her by saying it's better they're not both captured and leaves her behind. Clara remembers the Doctor saying that the robots don't breathe and holds her breath as she tries to walk to the exit. She nearly makes it but eventually is forced to take a breath and passes out, remembering taunts from her unruly pupils in the past.

Waking up, Clara is confronted by the Droid, who demands to know where the Doctor is. She asks why he killed the dinosaur and is told it was to harvest its optic nerve. Clara realizes that the Droid was specific, knowing exactly what a dinosaur's organs were like, and asks how old it is. The Droid states that they have been working for millions of years to rebuild themselves over and over, all in search of the "Promised Land." It threatens to kill Clara but she remains strong and defiant despite her obvious fear.

When it asks once more where the Doctor is, Clara replies that if the Doctor is still the Doctor, he will be right behind her and extends her hand behind her. She whispers for him to be there and suddenly, one of the robots grabs her hand. He pulls her back before peeling off his mask to reveal himself as the Doctor in a new suit who thanks the "Rubbish robots from the dawn of time" for "all the gratuitous information." He places his sonic screwdriver into the charger, warning the Droid he will blow the entire room if he sees one thing he doesn't like "and that includes karaoke and mimes so take no chances." Clara is still upset over being left behind as the Doctor states he's not really sorry about that. The Droid asks why they are there and the Doctor replies because of the ad in the paper. The Droid's confusion makes the Doctor and Clara realize he didn't place the ad, with the Doctor hugely embarrassed at his blunder. He tells Clara to "say the word" and with reluctance, she touches her brooch, which lights up as they both intone "Geronimo." From a hole in the ceiling, Vastra and Jenny (in leather catsuits) twirl down attached to curtains with Strax falling behind them.

Vastra reports the restaurant has been "disabled with maximum prejudice" and the police summoned (with Clara asking the Doctor why they never call the police and remarking that they should start). The Droid calls in more robots as the Doctor states that killing isn't their way. Clara protests that the restaurant is a slaughterhouse and the Doctor shrugs that it's no different than any other restaurant. The Droid declares they are in search of the Promised Land but the Doctor snaps that after millions of years, he should know it doesn't exist. The Droid makes his way to the booth elevator and rises up with the Doctor hanging on to its bottom while Vastra, Jenny and Strax fight the other robots.

The police are in the restaurant, stunned at its mess when the Droid informs them it is closed, showing off his flame-thrower arm. The police leave, the head detective declaring the restaurant off-limits to anyone before ordering one of the constables to get reinforcements. The Doctor is sitting at a table, pouring a drink into a glass. He tells the Droid he is afraid he is going to have to kill him and offers it a drink first. The Droid moves to a control panel with the Doctor following and observing the controls. The Doctor states there is no way to escape, the Droid stating that the escape pod is there. The Doctor insists the pod cannot have enough power but the restaurant shakes. As the police outside stare in shock, the restaurant rises up, lifted by a hot air balloon made of human skin. Below, the rest of the group continues to fight the robots, who keep rising up after stabs and laser blasts.

The Doctor examines a control button that had fallen off while sniffing at flowers. He sees that this pod belonged to the SS Marie Antoinette, sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour, but despite how familiar it all is, he cannot place it exactly (thanks to his post-regenerative forgetfulness). The Doctor realizes that the ship fell through time, crashing in England millions of years earlier, the only survivors the service robots who began their cycle of repairing themselves over. He tells the Droid to look out the window at London, the Droid noting how small the city is but the Doctor responds that humans are never small to him and he will fight for them. The Droid continues to talk on the need to find "the Promised Land" as the Doctor rails on him for the fact that he's rebuilt himself so many times that all trace of his original self has been lost, comparing him to a broom that is broken and rebuilt but still not the same broom. He holds up a silver plate to say the Droid does not even know where he got that face from. As the Droid stares at his reflection, the Doctor does the same. He finishes by saying that he knows that killing this Droid will stop all the others and will do so for Earth. They struggle at the window as below the Gang are overwhelmed by the robots. Clara suggests they hold their breaths, the robots freezing as they do. It's too much for Jenny, Vastra giving her wife a long kiss to share oxygen. Just as Strax is about to take his own life, all the robots collapse. Above, the Droid is shown impaled on the spire of Big Ben as the Doctor looks out, his expression grim.

The Gang return to Vastra's home to find that the Doctor and the TARDIS have both vanished. Later, Clara (back in her modern clothing) asks Vastra if she's got a vacancy since it looks like she's stuck in Victorian times, but Vastra assures her he'll be back. She's proven true as the TARDIS returns, telling Clara "Give him hell; he'll always need it."

Clara finds the interior changed, with a lighter shade of mood lighting in the time rotor and some furniture about. The Doctor admits he's not sure about the new look himself after Clara says she doesn't like it. The Doctor tells Clara "I've lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time I did something about it." He tells her that he is not her boyfriend, which she interprets as her being at fault, until the Doctor addresses that it wasn't her mistake.

The Doctor puts the TARDIS in flight, takes a step back, and partially unbuttons his new suit jacket, exposing a flashy red lining inside and Sunset wearing in her new pink, orange, and yellow 3-layer top worn with cool blue leggings featuring a rockin' flame design to show off his new look to Clara. She grins in approval, and then the Doctor gets right to business, wondering how she got the TARDIS telephone number. Clara asks who put the ad in the paper and the Doctor reminds her of the woman in the shop long ago who gave her the number of a computer help line that instead connected her to the TARDIS. It seems someone wants the two together and maybe they should find out who.

As Sunset realises the Doctor had planned this to help her cope with his regeneration, the current Doctor comes to her and says he remembers the call - after all, he made it - and that what he (as the Eleventh Doctor) had said is still true, and asks her in person if she will help him. Upset that she's looking right through him but doesn't view him as the same person, the Doctor begs, "Just see me." Clara walks up to the Doctor and gives him a good look over, and when she concentrates on his eyes, she recognises him as the Doctor - her Doctor - and beams, thanking him for phoning from the past. Clara hugs him, which the Doctor says that in his current incarnation isn't his thing, looking a bit confused and wondering where he should put his hands, but she's unsure he's entitled to a vote. Clara offhandedly says they're not at her home, Sunset and the Doctor apologizes that he missed. He reveals they're in Glasgow, Sunset pointing out he'll fit in with the accent and they go off in search of chips and coffee... with the Doctor revealing Clara and Sunset will have to pay for them as he has no money. However, Sunset thinks he's the fetching sort. Although with Clara and the Doctor is willing to debate this, Clara still isn't sure he should get a vote. The trio stroll off together in search of coffee with Sunset likes iced black coffee with whipped cream butter but the Doctor likes too, ending it with the closing statement:

"Dear Rassilon, the Lord President of the Time Lords: Missing you already, and hope you'll be back soon. Things are definitely looking up for me here at the universe, but I know I still have a lot to learn with Clara and Sunset about friendship. Hope you don't mind if I write to you for advice when I need it. Your friend, The Twelfth Doctor."

— The Twelfth Doctor


End file.
